In this study water-soluble N-Acetyl Cysteine Capped-Cadmium Telluride QDs (NAC/CdTe nanocrystals) using N-acetyl cysteine as a stabilizer were prepared to investigate the utility of quantum dots (QDs) in distinguishing damaged DNA, (extracted from blood samples of leukaemia patients), from intact DNA (extracted from blood samples of healthy individuals) to be used for biosensing application. Based on the optical characterization of the prepared QDs, the XRD results revealed the formation of the NAC-CdTe-QDs with a grain size of 7.1nm. Whereas, the SEM test showed that the spherical size of the NAC-CdTe-QDs lies within 11~33nm. NAC-CdTe-QDs have superior PL emission properties at of 550nm and UV-Vis absorption peak at 300nm. The energy gap

Background: The gene responsible for encoding the protein of cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) has been found to be associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in different ethnic populations. But the association of +49A/G CTLA-4 polymorphism with susceptibility of RA among Iraqi Arab populations has not yet been determined. Methods: One hundred and seventy-eight patients were examined, 67 of them were males (mean age 54.71 ± 10.4 years), while 167 were examined for the control group, of whom 64 were males and the rest were females. CTLA-4 DNA genotyping was carried on to determine the +49 A/G (rs231775) polymorphism using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Enzyme-linked immuno

ervical cancer is one of the most frequently diag nosed malignancies representing the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in females’ worldwide, with approximately 500,000 new cases diagnosed and 280,000 deaths occurring each year. Mxi1, an antagonist of c-Myc, maps to human chromosome 10q24-q25, a region altered in a substantial fraction of prostate tumors, in prostate cancer, where a high frequency of loss and mutation of the MXI1 gene has been reported. The aim of present study was to find out the possible association of exon deletion of MXI1 gene with incidence of cervical abnormalities and cancers in some Iraqi married women. The present study include collection of 120 scraping cervical cells samples from women clinically di

Despite extensive investigations, an effective treatment for sepsis remains elusive and a better understanding of the inflammatory response to infection is required to identify potential new targets for therapy. In this study we have used RNAi technology to show, for the first time, that the inducible lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferase 2 (LPCAT2) plays a key role in macrophage inflammatory gene expression in response to stimulation with bacterial ligands. Using siRNA- or shRNA-mediated knockdown, we demonstrate that, in contrast to the constitutive LPCAT1, LPCAT2 is required for macrophage cytokine gene expression and release in response to TLR4 and TLR2 ligand stimulation but not for TLR-independent stimuli. In addition, cells transfe

Abstract: E2F6 is a member of the E2F family of transcription factors involved in regulation of a wide variety of genes through both activation and repression. E2F6 has been reported as overexpressed in breast cancers but whether or not this is important for tumor development is unclear. We first checked E2F6 expression in tumor cDNAs and the protein level in a range of breast cancer cell lines. RNA interference-mediated depletion was then used to assess the importance of E2F6 expression in cell lines with regard to cell cycle profile using fluorescence-activated cell sorting and a cell survival assay using (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT). The overexpression of E2F6 was confirmed in breast tumor cDNA samp

          4-aminobenzenesulfonamide conjugates of ibuprofen (compound 10) and indomethacin (compound 11) have been designed and synthesized by the reaction of sulfanilamide (compound 7) with 2-(4-isobutylphenyl) propanoic acid (ibuprofen) and 2-(1-(4-chlorobenzoyl)-5-methoxy-2-methyl-1H-indol-3-yl)acetic acid (indomethacin) for the evaluation as potential anti-inflammatory agents with expected selectivity against COX-2 enzyme. In vivo acute anti-inflammatory activity of the synthesized final compounds (10 and 11) was evaluated in rats using egg-white induced edema model of inflammation in a dose equivalent to (10mg/Kg) of ibuprofen and (2mg/kg) of indomethacin. The tested compounds pr

Background:Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a progressive, chronic inflammatory illness with an unclear etiology that explicitly targets the vertebral column, peripheral joints, and extraarticular tissues. The purpose of this research was to investigate if the existence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the promoter region of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) gene at positions -1031T/C (rs199964), -857C/T (rs1799724) and -806C/T (rs4248158) in a sample of Iraqi AS patients could influence the patients' outcomes with etanercept.

Methods:Sixty patients with established AS receiving only etanercept were selected to enroll in this study, with a mean age of 40.75±8.6