2022 Impact Factor: 1.5
2023 CiteScore: 2.6
pISSN: 1735-1502
eISSN: 1735-5249
Chairman:
Mostafa Moin, M.D.
Editors-in-Chief:
Masoud Movahedi, M.D.
Vol 12, No 3 (2013)
Articles
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Adverse effects following immunization to vaccines (AEFI) are considered extremely rare events, the occurrence of which could gain a major role in optimizing allergy diagnosis by cellular tests. The urgent need to eradicate infectious diseases from population, is the main goal of vaccination campaign, therefore its successful outcome should be almost undisputable. Basophil Activation Test (BAT) is commonly used to ascertain a type I hypersensitivity reaction, often replacing reasability tests. Therefore, flow cytometry assay of basophil, as performed in BATs, is employed to test if a particular antigen elicits some activatory response from cells. The allergic subject may undergo an AEFI to vaccine not necessarily by an atopic reaction with an allergen within vaccines but because of the existence of an asymptomatic or not diagnosed inflammatory chronic allergy or other immune-disregulating allergy disorder in the subject. BAT, also in its basilar fashion, might be used from a simple heparinized whole blood specimen, but its application in diagnosing allergy before mandatory of facultative vaccination, must be associated to improve other diagnostic tools, at least in its pivotal application. If the application of BAT can be suggested to improve allergy diagnosis by introducing a cellular test in routinely used tools, such as sIgE and SPT, its use, due to possible expertise-consuming and relatively expensive issues, can be included in a specialized allergy consultancy panel as an exploratory approach of allergy inflammation, for which a subject undergoing immunization by vaccines is suggested to undergo and advised to sign an informed consent for BAT performing. This may extend BAT use in many other forms of chronic allergy and immunity disorders related to AEFI with vaccines.
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Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs) play an important role in gastric cancer (GC). Accumulated evidence suggests that functional MMP-1 and MMP-7 gene polymorphisms are associated with several tumors. The aim of this study was to investigate two single nucleotide polymorphisms, MMP-1 -1607 1G/2G and MMP-7 -181 A/G, and their potential relationship with GC.
We examined 246 GC patients and 252 age-and sex-matched controls from Sichuan province in China. Genotypes were determined using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism strategy and DNA sequencing. We also performed a meta- analysis of relevant studies, involving 1084 cases and 1721 controls, to place our findings in a broader context.
No significant relationship was observed between the MMP-1 -1607 1G/2G alleles and genotypes and the risk of GC. There were significant differences in the genotypes and allele distributions of the -181 A/G polymorphism of the MMP-7 gene between cases and controls. The -181 A allele carriers had a significantly increased risk of GC compared with 181 G allele carriers (OR=3.051, 95% CI, 1.475-6.310, P=0.002), and the AA genotype of 181 A/G was associated with an increased risk of GC compared with the AG genotype (OR=3.189, 95% CI, 1.523-6.676, P=0.001).
A meta-analysis of six studies also showed a significant risk of GC associated with MMP-7 polymorphism. -
Paraoxonase-1 (PON1) is a serum HDL-bound enzyme that hydrolyzes a number of aromatic carboxylic acid esters including lipid peroxides, preventing LDL oxidation. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients are at greater risk of oxidative stress, which is associated with abnormal plasma lipid metabolism. In this study, association of PON-55 polymorphism with serum arylesterase (ARE) activities, malondialdehyde (MDA), neopterin, lipids and lipoproteins levels in SLE patients and the development of hypertension was investigated. The present case-control study consisted of 109 SLE patients with and without high blood pressure (BP) and 103 healthy controls from the population in the west of Iran. PON-55 Met<Leu polymorphism was detected by restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP), serum ARE activity, MDA, neoptrin, lipid and apolipoprotein levels were determined by spectrophotometery and HPLC and enzyme assay, respectively. The presence of PON-55 M/M genotype was found to be associated with SLE and the development of high BP. The SLE patients with PON-M (M/L+M/M) allele had significantly lower serum ARE activity, but higher neoptrin and LDL-C than the carriers of corresponding genotypes in control group. The ARE activity was positively correlated with HDL-C and negatively correlated with LDL-C and MDA levels in SLE patients. Whereas, in SLE patients with high BP, ARE activity was only found to be negatively correlated with MDA concentration. These data suggest that PON-55 M/M genotype is a risk factor for SLE. The carriers of this allele have high levels of MDA, neopterin and LDL-C, thus, they are more likely to develop hypertension.
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Atopic Eczema (AE) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that affects children and adults, and alters quality of life with a high morbidity rate and severe economic burden. The objective of the present work was to analyse specific atmospheric pollutants (O3, NO, PM10 and SO2) affecting the prevalence of diagnosed AE and its symptoms among 6-7-year-old schoolchildren.
The participants included 21311 schoolchildren aged 6-7 years from 8 Spanish regions, whose parents completed the ISAAC Phase III questionnaire to ascertain AE diagnosis and symptoms. The mean levels (µg/m3) of O3, NO, PM10 (particles 10 micrometers or less in diameter) and SO2 were determined in each geographical area participating in this study.
According to these mean levels, three levels of exposure to each pollutant were considered: level 1 (percentiles 0-25); level 2 (percentiles 26-74); level 3 (percentiles 75-100). Exposure to O3 was associated with increased prevalence of rashes (exposure level 2, Odds Ratio (OR): 1.22, 95% Confidence Interval (95%CI): 1.02-1.45; level 3 OR: 1.33, 95%CI:1.10-1.61) and diagnosed AE (level 2, OR: 1.27, 95%CI: 1.17-1.39; level 3 OR: 1.27, 95%CI:1.15-1.41). An association was found between the level of NO and a drop in the prevalence of diagnosed AE (exposure level 2, OR: 0.88, 95%CI: 0.81-0.95; level 3 OR: 0.85, 95%CI:0.74-0.97). There was also an association between the highest exposure level to PM10 and a reduced prevalence of rashes (level 3 OR: 0.42, 95%CI: 0.22-0.81) and diagnosed AE (level 3OR: 0.53, 95%CI: 0.38-0.75).
Future studies into exposure to O3 and its relationship with allergic diseases may be conducted in order to prevent this association. -
Up-regulation of CD4+CD25+CD127low/- regulatory T cells (Tregs) is a new target in the treatment of asthma. Human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can up-regulate CD4+CD25+CD127low/- regulatory T cells in vitro, meanwhile, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) plays an important role in the development and maintenance of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells. However the mechanism has not yet been adequately understood. Hence, we wondered what effect of Heme Oxygenase-1 made on regulation of CD4+CD25+CD127low/- regulatory T cells mediated by mesenchymal stem cells.
Peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from asthmatic patients and healthy controls were co-cultured with human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells which were pretreated with Hemin (the revulsive of Heme Oxygenase-1), Protoporphyrin Ⅸ zinc (the inhibitor of Heme Oxygenase-1) and saline.
The expression of Heme Oxygenase-1 in MSCs was enhanced by Hemin and inhibited by Protoporphyrin zinc in vitro. Overexpression of Heme Oxygenase-1 elevated the proportion of CD4+CD25+CD127low/- regulatory T cells in CD4+ T cells, meanwhile, inhibition of Heme Oxygenase-1 decreased the proportion of CD4+CD25+CD127low/- regulatory T cells in CD4+ T cells as compared with mesenchymal stem cells alone.
Taken together, these data demonstrated that Heme Oxygenase-1 contributed to the up-regulation of CD4+CD25+CD127low/- regulatory T cells mediated by mesenchymal stem cells in asthma. -
In this paper, the method of differentiating asthmatic and non-asthmatic patients using the frequency analysis of capnogram signals is presented. Previously, manual study on capnogram signal has been conducted by several researchers. All past researches showed significant correlation between capnogram signals and asthmatic patients. However all of them are just manual study conducted through the conventional time domain method. In this study, the power spectral density (PSD) of capnogram signals is estimated by using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Autoregressive (AR) modelling.
The results show the non-asthmatic capnograms have one component in their PSD estimation, in contrast to asthmatic capnograms that have two components. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between the magnitude of the first component for both asthmatic and non-asthmatic capnograms.
The effectiveness and performance of manipulating the characteristics of the first frequency component, mainly its magnitude and bandwidth, to differentiate between asthmatic and non-asthmatic conditions by means of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and radial basis function (RBF) neural network were shown.
The output of this network is an integer prognostic index from 1 to 10 (depends on the severity of asthma) with an average good detection rate of 95.65% and an error rate of 4.34%. This developed algorithm is aspired to provide a fast and low-cost diagnostic system to help healthcare professional involved in respiratory care as it would be possible to monitor severity of asthma automatically and instantaneously. -
YKL-40 (chitinase-3-like-1) has been introduced as a marker of inflammation in asthma. The aim of this study was to determine the role of YKL-40 in asthma and to evaluate the relationship between YKL-40 and asthma severity.
In the study, 60 non-smoker asthma patients without additional diseases (aged between 20-60 years, female: 34) were grouped [Group I: Well controlled asthma patients (n: 30), Group II: Patients during acute exacerbation of asthma (n: 30)]. Healthy non-smoker female individuals were included in Group III (n: 30) as a control group. The level of serum YKL-40 of all groups were determined by ELISA. Also, serum YKL- 40 level was correlated with age, asthma duration in years, body mass index (BMI), forced expiratory volume in first second/ forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC, %), FEV1 (%), and total IgE levels of asthma patients.
Mean serum YKL-40 level was highest in patients during acute exacerbation of asthma (36.36±10.49 ng/ml) while mean serum YKL-40 level was the lowest (13.20±5.60 ng/ml) in the control group. There was a negative significant correlation between the serum YKL-40 levels and FEV1 (%) in patients during acute exacerbation of asthma. There were no significant correlations between the serum YKL-40 levels and other variables in group II.
We found that increased serum YKL-40 levels may be used as a marker for evaluation of asthma severity and genetic polymorphism. -
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways, which is diagnosed by periodic symptoms of inflammation, bronchial spasm, and increased mucosal secretions. It has higher incidence among the preschool children. There are many contradictory reports based on the effect of asthma on oral health, however it has been hypothesized that asthma could lead to poor oral health. The objective of the present study was to investigate oral health indices in 44 preschool children of three to six years old with mild to moderate asthma and 46 matched healthy children in Tehran Children's Respiratory Center.
Dental plaque, gingival inflammation, mouth breathing, and dental caries were evaluated by one trained examiner according to World Health Organization [WHO] criteria. Culture and colony counting of streptococcus mutans and lactobacillus species were carried out in saliva specimens of the patients. The effects of different factors on the colony counts were statistically analyzed using linear regression analysis.
The level of mother’s education and preexisting asthma disease in children had significant effect on the colony counts of streptococcus species whereas no factor was found to influence the number of lactobacillus counts significantly. The results indicated no significant differences between the children with asthma and those without asthma regarding (decayed, missing, filled, teeth) dmft index (mean of 3.34 in asthmatic children and 3.0 in the control group).
Therefore, it can be deduced that the presence of asthma disease did not increase the probability of tooth decay. -
There are limited clinical investigations identifying the percentage of T helper 1 (Th1) and T regulatory (Treg) cells in stable as well as rejected kidney allografts, a concept which needs to be more studied. The aim of our study was to compare the percentage of CD4+ IFN-γ+ cells, the number of IFN-γ secreting cells and the amount of FoxP3 expression in patients with or without stable graft function, to determine the roles of these immunological factors in stable and rejected renal allografts. In this prospective study, 3 months after transplantation 30 patients who received renal transplants from unrelated living donors were enrolled and divided into two groups, 20 patients with stable graft function and 10 patients with biopsy proven acute rejection. The percentage of Th1 CD4+ IFN-γ+ cells was determined on PBMC by flow cytometry and the number of IFN-γ secreting cells by ELISPOT method. Furthermore, FoxP3 expression of PBMCs was measured by Real Time PCR method. The results of these assessments in both groups were statistically analyzed by SPSS 14.0. Our results showed that the percentage of Th1 CD4+ IFN-γ+ cells and the number of IFN-γ secreting cells were significantly higher in the patients with acute rejection in comparison to the stable graft function group (p<0.001). In addition, the level of FoxP3 gene expression was higher in the group with stable graft compared to the acute rejection group. The higher percentage of CD4+ IFN-γ+Th1 subset and number of IFN-γ secreting cells and also the lower expression of Foxp3 could prone the patients to acute rejection episode post transplantation. By these preliminary data, it is suggested that monitoring of Th1 cells post transplantation, as an immunologic marker could predict the possibility of rejection episodes.
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Mutations in the human hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome contribute to its escape from host immune surveillance and result in persistent infections. The aim of this study was to characterize the molecular variations of the surface gene and protein in chronically-infected patients from the southern part of Iran.
The surface genes from 12 HBV chronic carriers were amplified, sequenced and subsequently aligned using international and national Iranian database.
All strains belonged to genotype D, subgenotype D1 and subtype ayw2. Of all 30 muta-tions occurred at 22 nucleotide positions, 18 (60%) were missense (amino acid altering) and 12 (40%) were silent (no amino acid changing). The mean mutation frequency (missense to silent nucleotide ratio), was 1.5, indicating application of a high positive selection pressure on the surface proteins. At the amino acid level, of 17 substitutions, 15 (88%) occurred in different immune epitopes within surface protein, of which 7 (46.6%) in B cell epitopes in 5 residues; 7 (46.6%) in T helper epitopes in 6 positions; 1 (7%) in inside CTL epitopes in 1 residue.
We therefore conclude that the distribution of 93.2% of amino acid mutations inside B and T helper immune epitopes as well as the ratio between silent and missense nucleotide mutations showed a positive, focused immune selection pressure on the surface protein, which led to the evolution and emergence of escape mutants in these patients. -
Cumulating evidence points to a key role for CD8+ T cells in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis.CD8 expression level was believed to be present constantly on the surface of human peripheral blood T cells. However, it was shown that peripheral blood lymphocytes may be divided by the level of CD8 expression, into CD8+high and CD8+low T cells. Now it is well established that the CD8low population of CD8+ T cells demonstrates an activated effector phenotype while the CD8+high T cells have been reported to have regulatory function. In this report we used a flow cytometric assay to compare the frequency of these two subsets in multiple sclerosis patients (n=31) with healthy age- and gender-matched controls (n=18). We found that CD8+ T cells and CD8+low T cells significantly increased in secondary progressive (SP) and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) patients in comparison to controls (p<0.0002 and p<0.004 respectively) and also RRMS (p<0.005 and p<0.017 respectively). These results demonstrated the role of CD8low T cells in progressive form of multiple sclerosis.
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The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of intranasal phototherapy on nasal microbial flora in patients with allergic rhinitis.
This prospective, self-comparised, single blind study was performed on patients with a history of at least two years of moderate-to-severe perennial allergic rhinitis that was not controlled by anti-allergic drugs. Thirty-one perennial allergic rhinitis patients were enrolled in this study. Before starting the test population on their intranasal phototherapy, the same trained person took a nasal culture from each subject by applying a sterile cotton swab along each side of the nostril and middle meatus. Each intranasal cavity was irradiated three times a week for two weeks with increasing doses of irradiated. At the end of the intranasal phototherapy, nasal cultures were again obtained from the each nostril The study found that after intranasal phototherapy, the scores for total nasal symptoms decreased significantly but bacterial proliferation was not significantly different before and after phototherapy.
We have shown that intranasal phototherapy does not change the aerobic nasal microbial flora in patients with perennial allergic rhinitis. -
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized by poor social interaction and communication impairment and repetitive behavior. Autism is considered as a genetic and multifactorial disorder, with diverse risk factors involved.
Herein, we report a 13-year-old male with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 years old.
As there are some evidences about the role of the immune system defects in the pathogenesis of autism, specific primary antibody deficiency diseases such as CVID might predispose some affected cases to this neurodevelopmental disorders. -
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
