Archives of Medical Laboratory Sciences

Background: A variety of infections, including acute and recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs), can trigger production of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL).  These antibodies in women can lead to recurrent pregnancy loss. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of aPL in recurrent UTI patients.

Materials and Methods: A total 52 subjects who had positive urine culture and 50 healthy individuals as controls were evaluated for presence of lupus anticoagulant (LA), anticardiolipin, anti-β2 GPI(anti-

Background: Enzymatic digestion is an essential stage for culturing Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) and their therapeutic application. Several factors such as being cost-benefit, efficiency, safety, yield and amount of produced cells are determinant for choosing the appropriate enzyme. Collagenase is a conventional enzyme commonly used for enzymatic digestion. However, other enzymes like trypsin and even combination of these enzymes can be used as an alternative strategy in different situations.

Materials and Methods: Abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue was obtained from male BALB/c mice and digested under three different enzymatic processes: collagenase and collagenase/trypsin and trypsin. Cell culture process was performed under standard condition and MSCs at 3rd passage were used for further characterization by flow cytometry.

 Results: In this study, two different enzymatic methods for digestion of adipose-derived MSCs (ADSCs) of BALB/c mice were investigated. The morphology of cells was pretty different and was more homogenous in collagenase group. Also the yield of cells was varied among groups. Furthermore, the obtained data from flow cytometry revealed that ADSCs were positive for CD90 (70%), CD29 (98%), CD105 (52%) and negative for CD45 (<2%).

Conclusion: Application of different enzymes depends on various conditions. Altogether, these data indicate that although use of trypsin in isolation protocol is cost-benefit, it can be used as an alternative method whenever limited number of cells will be needed. However, collagenase as a well-known and conventional method can be used for isolation of larger quantity of cells with several applications. 

Background: Diabetes mellitus is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Different biomarkers have been investigated for the diagnosis of diabetes pathogenesis or its complications. There are also reports regarding an increased level of anti-HSP27 antibodies in atherogenesis. We aimed to evaluate serum anti-heat shock protein 27 antibodies level in subjects with diabetes mellitus and undiagnosed individuals.

 Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 6447 MASHAD study subjects, including four groups with diabetes mellitus (n=610), undiagnosed diabetes (n=162), impaired fasting glucose (IFG) (n=619) and normal (n=5056) subjects. Demographic and anthropometric data were obtained from all participants. Fasting serum glucose (FSG) and other parameters were measured. In-house enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay method was used for measuring Anti-HSP27 antibodies levels.

Results: There were significant differences in weight (p=0.034), body mass index, waist, and hip circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, fasting serum glucose, lipid profile and high sensitive- C reactive protein (p<0.001) between four groups of diabetes mellitus, undiagnosed diabetes, impaired fasting glucose, and normal subjects. The serum anti-HSP27 antibody titer did not show a significant difference between studied groups.

Conclusion: Serum antibody titers to HSP27 were not significantly different between four groups categorized based on their FSG levels in a large population.

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the main causes of death all over the world. Predisposing factors comprise some infectious etiologies with systemic effects such as the hepatitis C virus and HBV-infection might be related to CAD from chronic inflammation process. The relationships between hepatitis B and C virus (HBV and HCV) infections and CAD considered a noticeable health problem. In the present study, we evaluated the seropositivity of HCV and HBV in CAD patients from the Iranian population.

Materials and Methods: We conducted a cohort study including 192 CAD subjects. To identify HCV and HBV -infected subjects, a serologic examination comprising Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti-HCV antibodies (HCV-Ab) tests performed by ELISA method. Also, we examined the biochemical blood parameters such as lipid profile, glycemic parameters, and blood inflammatory factor (C-reactive protein).

Results: We identified a very low percent of HBV-infected cases (1.04%). All examined CAD patients indicate the HCV Ab-negative results. The HBV-infected subject had not, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. HBV infection was not related to the increased risk of CAD. Also, CAD risk factors were not associated with the prevalence of HBV and HCV.

Conclusion: According to the results, HCV and HBV infections had very low prevalence in examined subjects and there was not any association between CAD and prevalence of HCV and HBV infections.

Background: The insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) has an important role in insulin signaling pathways in the target tissue of obese or insulin-resistant individuals. This study aimed to assess the effect of resistance training on fasting glucose, insulin resistance, and IRS-1 gene expression in gastrocnemius muscle in male Wister rats with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Materials and Methods: For this purpose, T2D induced by high- fat diet (8 weeks) and STZ in fourteen male Wistar rats (220 ± 10 g) and then assigned into exercise (resistance training, 8 weeks, 5 days/weekly, n = 7) and control (no-training, n = 7) by randomly. Fasting blood samples were obtained for measuring glucose, insulin, and calculating insulin resistance (HOMA-IR).  Also, the IRS-1 gene expression in gastrocnemius muscle was measured 48 hours after the last training session of both cases and controls.

Results: Compared to control, IRS-1 gene expression in gastrocnemius muscle increased significantly by resistance training in exercise groups (p = 0.001). Fasting glucose (p < 0.001) and insulin resistance (p = 0.007) were reduced in the exercise rats compared to the control group.

Conclusion: Based on the results, improved fasting glucose and insulin function after resistance training in T2D diabetes could be attributed to enhancing IRS-1 expression in gastrocnemius muscle by training.

Earlier detection of diseases reduces the mortality rate.  So the development of better screening techniques could be considered as a main topic of interest. In non-invasive medical imaging, specifically in  Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), conventional contrast agents do not have a good performance in imaging of some fine parts. The prosperity of preclinical researches in oncology that purpose at developing and evaluating curative strategies on samples, requires effective new functionalized contrast agents for portrayal tumor growth, monitoring the trace of a treatment and/or inducing the demolition of cancerous tumors. This study was performed by searching Nanotechnology, Molecular imaging, magnetic nanoparticles, and contrast agent nanoparticles keywords in Google scholar, Science direct, PubMed and Scopus websites in terms of content. We reviewed the recent studies about development of nanoparticles as contrast agents for medical imaging because they have a longer vascular half-life than molecular contrast agents. It could be indicate that nanoparticles are important items in increasing the contrast of the images so that even reducing the size of the magnetic nanoparticles escalates the contrast and half-life of the particles. Particles with a diameter of 10 nm have a greater half-life than particles with a diameter of 30 nm or larger. It was also found that to removing material defects or improve their biocompatibility; particles should be covered with other materials or doped with metals.