Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disorder with various clinical types. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is significantly elevated in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of MS patients compared with that of healthy controls. The aim of this study is to evaluate serum levels of GFAP in relation to disease activity in relapsing-remitting MS patients and to compare them with those of healthy controls. Method: This study involved 58 MS patients of relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) type, 22 in an active stage of the disease and 36 in remission, and 50 healthy individuals as age- and sex-matched controls. Blood samples were taken from the patients at the MS Clinic of the Baghdad Teaching Hospital, and the serum levels of GFAP were determined using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. Results: Mean GFAP serum levels in 22 patients presenting in the active state of the disease (6.47±3.39 ng/ml) and 36 cases in remission were (5.33±2.82 ng/ml) (p=0.074) were determined as indicated. When RRMS patients (n=58) were compared with the healthy controls (n=50, 1.89±1.21), the difference in serum levels of GFAP was statistically significant (p<0.001). The area under the curve of the serum measures of GFAP obtained through the receiver operating characteristics was 0.903, which was also statistically significant (p<0.001). Conclusion: GFAP biomarker is an indicator of disease activity in RRMS patients, and its serum level may correlate with the state of remission or exacerbation.
Light is an important factor that influences the growth and photosynthetic efficiency of microalgae; however, little is known about how light intensity together with the wavelength affect the photosynthetic capacity and growth of marine microalgae. In the present study, the growth of the marine green microalga Dunaliella parva was studied and optimized under different light intensities (25 ~ 70 μmol m-2 s-1) and qualities (blue, green, and red) in comparison with white light at 40 μmol m-2 s-1 as a control. The growth was monitored by counting the cell number, pigment content, Chl a, Chl b, and carotenoids concentrations. The optimal growth and highest photosyntheti
... Show MoreThe effects of temperature on an exotic aquatic snail Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck, 1819) collected from the Shatt Al-Arab intertidal zone were investigated. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted during the summer period of 2017. Individuals of new born snails hatched in the laboratory from adult snails were collected from Shatt Al-Arab intertidal zone, and subjected to five fixed temperatures: 15, 25, 35, 40 and 45 Cº, after short term thermal acclimation. The heartbeats (HB) were counted at each temperature level. The results showed significant direct increase of HB from 15 Cº (19.8 HB/min) up to 25 Cº (76 HB/min) (P<0.05) as well as from 25 Cº to 35 Cº (93 HB/min). At 40 Cº the snail HB
... Show MoreIn this paper, a procedure to establish the different performance measures in terms of crisp value is proposed for two classes of arrivals and multiple channel queueing models, where both arrival and service rate are fuzzy numbers. The main idea is to convert the arrival rates and service rates under fuzzy queues into crisp queues by using graded mean integration approach, which can be represented as median rule number. Hence, we apply the crisp values obtained to establish the performance measure of conventional multiple queueing models. This procedure has shown its effectiveness when incorporated with many types of membership functions in solving queuing problems. Two numerical illustrations are presented to determine the validity of the
... Show MoreThe δ-mixing of γ-transitions in 70As populated in the 32 70 70 33 Ge p n As (, ) γ reaction is calculated in the present work by using the a2-ratio methods. In one work we applied this method for two cases, the first one is for pure transition and the sacend one is for non pure transition, We take into account the experimental a2-coefficient for previous works and δ -values for one transition only.The results obtained are, in general, in a good agreement within associated errors, with those reported previously , the discrepancies that occur are due to inaccuracies existing in the experimental data of the previous works.
The present study was conducted to investigate the antimicrobial activity of the hot water and the hot ethanolic extracts of Thuja orientalis against some pathogenic microorganisms (Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Eschericha coli, Proteus mirrablis, Salmonilla typhi, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilus, Acinobacter, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Candida albicans). Results showed that both the water and alcoholic extracts of this plant exert marked inhibitory effect against all the bacterial isolates and yeast and at different ratio, and it was shown that ethanolic extract was more effective in microbial inhibition than the water extract. Maximum inhibition (16 mm) was recorded against Staphylococcus aur
... Show MoreAlteration in the backbone structure of the endogenously released opioid peptides Leu5/Met5 enkephalins may result in compounds having comparable profile of pharmacological activity but with different physicochemical properties and side effects. Phthalyl amino acid and phthalyl esters are among the derivatives that have been synthesized and evaluated for their antibacterial and antifungal activities.This study was conducted to evaluate the possible analgesic activity of phthalyl-tyrosyl-glycin sodium that has been recently synthesized by our team.The study was carried out on 24 albino mice using hot plate method. The animals were allocated in to three groups; the first group received saline and represent a control g
... Show MoreThe Chemistry of heterocyclic sulphur and nitrogen containing compounds have a great role in the field of scientific studies, The 2-amino 5-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole ring for instance, has gained more importance in recent years because they are considered as potent biologically active nucleus. In this study disulfide derivative can be obtained by oxidation with hydrogen peroxide of thiol group of the heterocyclic 2-amino 5-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole ring to obtain compound (3) with expected antibacterial activity. In order to use it as a diazo component to prepare some new bis azo compounds as possible antibacterial agents, the reaction of two primary amino groups on both sides of disulfide dimer with sodium nitr
... Show MoreThe chemicals materials were used to study the effect of citric acid, detergents, sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate on the vitality of the third stage of mosquito Culex pipiens molestus. The highest larvicidal efficacy was established from citric acid solution followed by detergents solution, sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate with (LC50) values 2096, 2715, 13930, 13960 ppm respectively. The concentration of 1000 ppm of citric acid showed a fatal effect on the third stage larvae of mosquitoes which gave a mortality percent of 100% on the second day of the treatment. It was followed by the concentrations of 750 ppm and 500 ppm respectively which caused the death of all larvae on the fifth and sixth days respe
... Show MoreIn this work ester derivatives were synthesized by the reaction of imidazole derivatives (C1) with ethylchloroacetate in ethanol and NaOH to give the corresponding (C2) .While compound (C3) acetohydrazide was synthesized by the reaction of ester derivatives (C2) with hydrazine hydrat in ethanol. Compound (C3) from the reaction with different aromatic aldehydes in absolute ethanol gave the Schiff′s bases (C4,C5). The product compounds were characterized by FT-IR, U.V and 1HNMR spectra and the biological activities were studied as antibacterial.
The current study was concerned with the effect of alkaloid extract of the aerial parts of Capparis spinosa against Entamoeba histolytica and compared with drug Metronidazole in the laboratory mice .Stool samples were collected from people infected with maebiasis to infect laboratory mice . The alkaloid compounds were separated by thin chromatography technique (TLC) and identified by spectral methods represented by spectral infrared (IR) and altraviolate (UV) . the stady include determining mid-term lethal dose LD50 of the extract as the concentration was 21.65 g / kg . The effect dose of the extract was tested on the infected experimental mice with Entamoeba histolytica after 10 days of the infection compared with the mice infected
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