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The Role of the Deubiquitylase MYSM1 During Alphavirus Infection
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The Role of the Deubiquitylase MYSM1 During Alphavirus Infection Amer Nubgan The members of the genus Alphavirus are positive-sense RNA viruses and it is one of two within the family Togaviridae. Most alphaviruses are predominantly transmitted to susceptible vertebrates by a mosquito vector. Alphavirus disease in humans can be severely debilitating, and depending on the particular viral species, infection may result in encephalitis and possibly life threatening symptoms. Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the aetiological agent represents a substantial health burden to affected populations, with clinical symptoms that include severe joint and muscle pain, rashes, and fever, as well as prolonged periods of disability in some patients. In recent years, CHIKV has received significant attention from public health authorities as a consequence of the dramatic emergence infections in the Indian Ocean islands and the Caribbean as well as the recent emergence of CHIKV in the Americas. Infections have also been reported around Europe such as in Italy, France and Greece. Currently, no safe, approved or effective vaccine or treatment exists for CHIKV infection. The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), the major intracellular proteolytic pathway, mediates different kinds of cellular processes, which may be targeted by viruses to aid their replication within cells. In recent years it has been well established that both the forward reaction of ubiquitination, and the reverse reaction of deubiquitination are targeted during virus infection to enhance their replication, either by targeting of cellular proteins or encoding viral homologues of key pathway proteins. The reverse reaction is undertaken by a large family of enzymes termed deubiquitylases or DUBs, and many of these have been shown to play a crucial role, not only in virus replication but also in the regulation of the immune system and vesicle trafficking. The DUBs are attractive drug targets and have increasingly been implicated in cellular processes germane to malignancy which makes the continued characterisation of the role of DUBs during virus infection a worthwhile objective. In on-going experiments in the research group a DUB siRNA pools library screen identified 12 DUBs (USP1, USP4, USP5, USP34, USP45, USP46, OTUD6A, UCHL1, JOSD2, BRCC3 and MYSM1). Depletion of these hits in HeLa cells lead to an increase in cell viability following Semiliki Forest Virus (SFV) infection (and predicted to be pro-viral) and thus could potential be candidate antiviral targets. Inroads into understanding the role of the DUB hits during the alphavirus infection, focusing initial on the BSL2 model virus SFV, and extending this to CHIKV (at BSL3). In the present study, further screening focused on the deconvolution siRNA pools for the DUB hits. Investigation of the subsequent follow up experiments with one strong candidate DUB from this list, MYSM1. Two different approaches were taken. Firstly, the effect of depletion of MYSM1 by siRNA treatment was further investigated in HeLa cells. Secondly, the analysis was extended to investigate the role of MYSM1 in fibroblasts utilising MYSM1 genetic knockout murine embryo fibroblasts. Results from this study indicate that depletion of MYSM1 in HeLa cells by siRNAs resulted in a reduction in both SFV and CHIKV replication, as assayed by measuring RNA levels and plaque formation. It was also found that MYSM1 genetic knockout in MEF cells lead to increase in both SFV and CHIKV replication. In addition, depletion of MYSM1 by siRNAs in MRC-5 cells lead to increase in SFV replication. In conclusion, MYSM1 generated interesting data, implying a role during virus infection that appeared to depend on the cell type being infected. Up to now it is unclear what the effector mechanisms are that contribute to these observations, subject to further mechanistic and functional studies, may increase the options available for targeting this vital DUB during Alphavirus infections.

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Publication Date
Tue Nov 01 2022
Journal Name
Inorganic Chemistry Communications
Sustainable adsorptive removal of high concentration organic contaminants from water using biodegradable Gum-Acacia integrated magnetite nanoparticles hydrogel adsorbent
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Release of industrial effluents comprising dyes in water bodies is one of the foremost causes of water pollution. Therefore, the proper and proficient treatment of these dyes contaminated left-over material before their release is crucial. Herein, an eco-friendly biological macromolecule Gum-Acacia (GA) integrated Fe3O4 nanoparticles composite hydrogel was manufactured via co-precipitation technique for effective adsorption of Congo red (CR) dye existing in water bodies. The as-prepared magnetic GA/Fe3O4 composite hydrogel was characterized by FTIR, XRD, EDX, VSM, SEM, and BET techniques. These studies discovered the fruitful fabrication of biodegradable magnetic GA/Fe3O4 composite hydrogel possessing porous structure with large surface are

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Publication Date
Mon Sep 02 2024
Journal Name
F1000research
Green synthesis of gold nanoparticles using Pelargonium Graveolens leaf extract: characterization and anti-microbial properties (An in-vitro study)
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Background In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the level of attention devoted to exploring capabilities of nanoparticles, specifically gold nanoparticles AuNPs, within context of modern times. AuNPs possess distinct biophysical properties, as a novel avenue as an antibacterial agent targeting Streptococcus Mutans and Candida Albicans. The aim of this study to create a nano-platform that has the potential to be environmentally sustainable, in addition to exhibiting exceptional antimicrobial properties against Streptococcus Mutans as well as Candida Albicans. Methods this study involved utilization of Pelargonium Graveolens leaves extract as a cost effective and environmentally sustainable app

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Publication Date
Tue Jun 01 2021
Journal Name
Swarm And Evolutionary Computation
A review of heuristics and metaheuristics for community detection in complex networks: Current usage, emerging development and future directions
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Sensibly highlighting the hidden structures of many real-world networks has attracted growing interest and triggered a vast array of techniques on what is called nowadays community detection (CD) problem. Non-deterministic metaheuristics are proved to competitively transcending the limits of the counterpart deterministic heuristics in solving community detection problem. Despite the increasing interest, most of the existing metaheuristic based community detection (MCD) algorithms reflect one traditional language. Generally, they tend to explicitly project some features of real communities into different definitions of single or multi-objective optimization functions. The design of other operators, however, remains canonical lacking any inte

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Publication Date
Tue Jun 16 2020
Journal Name
Frontiers In Pharmacology
Administration of Δ9‐Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) Post‐Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B Exposure Protects Mice From Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Toxicity
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Publication Date
Wed Sep 01 2021
Journal Name
Meta Gene
Genetic polymorphism of IL-17A (rs2275913) in Iraqi women with recurrent abortion and its relationship with susceptibility to toxoplasmosis
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Publication Date
Fri Oct 31 2025
Journal Name
The Iraqi Geological Journal
Improving Carbonate Reservoir Development Decision: A Study of Controlling Factors Based on Geological and Engineering Objectives, Halfaya Oil Field
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Detecting the optimum layer for well placement, which requires a diverse assortment of tools and techniques, represents a significant challenge in petroleum studies due to its critical impact on minimizing drilling costs and time. This study aims to evaluate integrated geological, petrophysical, seismic, and geomechanical data to identify the optimum zones for well placement. Three different reservoirs were analyzed to account for lateral and vertical variations in reservoir properties. The integrated data from these reservoirs provides many tools for reservoir development, especially to detect appropriate well placement zones based on evaluations of reservoir and geomechanical quality. The Mechanical Earth Model (MEM) was construct

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Publication Date
Thu May 21 2026
Journal Name
American Institute Of Physics Publishing
Synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation of some new Schiff bases derivatives derived from 4-formylphenyl-2-(2,3-dimethylphenylamino) benzoate
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New derivatives of Schiff bases were synthesized from the aldehyde derivative (Ma2) which was produced by reacting the mefenamic acid (Ma) with thionyl chloride to obtain the acid halide derivative (Ma1). Compound (Ma1) was dissolved in DMF and mixed with p-hydroxybenzaldehyde which was previously dissolved with pyridine to obtain the aldehyde derivative (Ma2). In the final step, derivatives of Schiff bases were synthesized by reacting the aldehyde (Ma2) with a number of different aromatic primary amines in the presence of glacial acetic acid to obtain the new derivatives Ma [3-10]. The new prepared compounds were characterized by melting points and with spectral data FT-IR, 13C-NMR and 1H-MNR (some of them). The vital effectiven

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Publication Date
Wed May 13 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Plant Nutrition
Seed priming of sorghum cultivars by gibberellic and salicylic acids to improve seedling growth under irrigation with saline water
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An experiment was conducted in pots under field conditions during fall seasons of 2017 and 2018. This study aimed to improve a weak growth of seedlings under salt stress in sorghum. Three factors were studied. 1st factor was three cultivars (Inqath, Rabeh, and Buhoth70). 2nd factor was seed priming (primed and unprimed seed). Seed were primed by soaking for 12 hours in a solution containing 300 + 70 mg L−1 of gibberellic (GA3) and salicylic (SA) acids, respectively. 3rd factor was irrigation with saline water (6, 9 and 12 dS m−1) resulting from dissolving sodium chloride in distilled water in addition to control treatment (distilled water). Randomized complete block design was used with four replications. In both seasons: the results sh

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Publication Date
Sun Jun 26 2022
Journal Name
International Journal Of Corrosion And Scale Inhibition
Synthesis of polysulfanilamide by electro polymerization and its corrosion protective properties on 316L stainless steel in 0.2 M HCl
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The electrochemical polymerization of the monomer sulfanilamide (SAM) in an aqueous solution at room temperature produces polysulfanilamide (PSAM). The Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to investigate the properties of the prepared polymer layer that generated on the stainless steel (St.S) surface (working electrode) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) was used to characterize the morphology, topology, and detailed surface structure of polymer layer that generated on the surface. The corrosion behavior of uncoated and coated St.S were evaluated by using the electrochemical polarization method in a 0.2 M HCl solution and a temperature range of 293–323 K, the anticorrosion action of the polymer coating on stainless steel

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Publication Date
Tue Sep 01 2026
Journal Name
Molecular Genetics And Metabolism Reports
Acid sphingomyelinase deficiency: Phenotypic, biochemical, and molecular heterogeneity in a series of 47 Iraqi patients from a single center
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Objectives Acid sphingomyelinase deficiency (ASMD) is an inherited autosomal recessive disease caused by pathogenic variants in the sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase-1 (SMPD1) gene, which encodes acid sphingomyelinase (ASM). ASMD has 3 broad phenotypes (type A, type A/B, and type B) characterized by the age of onset, symptomatology, and the rapidity of disease progression. The diagnosis of ASMD can be delayed or missed because of the wide spectrum of severity and its variable manifestations. Analysis of genotype-phenotype correlations can help to determine ASMD disease type and inform management. Here, we describe the clinical presentation of 47 patients with ASMD referred to a single center in Iraq since 2007, whose diagnosis was confirmed b

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