جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « ایمونولوژی » در نشریات گروه « پزشکی »

The outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) has posed a global health challenge since late 2019. In the meantime and due to Covid-19 pandemic, many parameters and possible diseases were considered as the creating and or exacerbating factors of the emerged disease. In regard to the nature and pathogenesis of therespiratory disorders; and especially asthma; they are deemed as the notable special conditions. The immunologic manifestations of COVID-19 and its clinical presentations have conducted an especial attention on patients with allergic disorders, while exposing to new emerged infection. Therefore, the present study tries to investigate the interactive effects of the new coronavirus infection and conditions of the patients with allergic disorders.

 One of the common concerns among dental students is stress during practical exams. Based on the available studies, stress might increase salivary cortisol levels. On the other hand, light music has a significant role in decreasing stress. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of listening to light music on salivary cortisol levels in dental students.

 In this cross-over study, 20 students of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran were selected using an objective-biased method and divided into two groups of A and B. The subjects were given a practical tooth preparation test. Light music was first played for group A subjects and then for group B subjects. On both exam days, 1 mL of unstimulated salivary samples were collected in a special container from all subjects before and after the exam and 5 minutes after they washed their mouth with water. The samples were sent to the laboratory for measuring salivary cortisol levels. Data were analyzed with the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and paired t-test using SPSS 22.

 In the group which listened to light music while sitting for the exam in the first week, there was a significant difference in the salivary cortisol levels before and after the first test at around 1.07 ± 1.19 (p value = 0.019), with higher levels of cortisol before the exam. In the second-week group, there was a significant difference in salivary cortisol levels after the first exam at around 0.57 ± 0.29 (p value = 0.001), with higher cortisol levels before the exam.

 Listening to light music decreased salivary cortisol levels, indicating lower stress levels.

Introduction Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease caused by persistent intolerance to gluten, which is causedin people who are genetically predisposed. The disease presents with atrophy of the small intestinal mucosa and gastrointestinal and extra-gastrointestinal manifestations.Environmental factors like gluten and genetic factors such as HLA and non-HLA genes are involved in causing the disease.Mucosal atrophy results from an adaptive and innate immune response to gluten. T-helper, interleukin 15 and tumor necrosisfactor-alpha have a central role in this process. Recognize the risk of genetic factors and inflammatorymechanisms will help diagnose and treat the disease.

Behçet's disease (BD), also known as the Silk Road disease, is a multisystemic and rare inflammatory disorder primarily prevalent in populations along the Mediterranean Sea. Today, BD is defined as a crossroad between autoimmune and auto-inflammatory syndromes. Variety of syndromes including mucocutaneous manifestations such as oral and genital ulcers, papulopustular lesions and erythema nodosum as well as ocular, vascular, gastrointestinal and nervous system occur. The disease etiology has not yet been elaborated, though researchers have reported several reasons that can increase the likelihood of the disease occurrence including a genetic factor, human leukocyte antigen HLA-B51 (B51) antigen, infectious conditions such as herpes simplex virus (HSV), those involved in inflammatory and autoimmune conditions such as imbalance of various cytokines and immune cells levels as well as existence of various gene variants. Among the various immuno dysfunctions that are found in BD, patients have increased neutrophil motility and superoxide production, as well as elevated production of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and decreased production of interleukin-10 (IL-10). Since vasculitis and tissue damage is usually seen with Behcet disease, unusual concentrations of chemokine and adhesion molecules can also help us understand the causes of disease. Among the functional deficiencies of the immune system, increased concentrations of neutrophils and monocytes are of importance leading to an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS). Behcet's disease has common characteristics with some immune-mediated diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which suggests that they may share similar etiologies and genes. Genetic and epigenetic modulations have also been proposed as involved in the pathogenesis of BD. Modifications in DNA methylation have been found in BD patient monocytes and lymphocytes, leading to the adverse function of these cells. The positive replies to classical immunosuppressive agents like cyclosporine and azathioprine and participation of autoantigens at the beginning of the illness are the chief BD features that reflect the autoimmune nature of the disorder. This review article attempts to introduce the BD disease and its contributing factors with emphasis on the role of different cells and cytokines based on updated studies.

Immunoglobulins are a group of proteins have important role in defense against microorganisms. Human immunoglobulins are divided into five classes: IgA, IgM, IgD, IgE and IgG. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is the highest abundant antibody in serum and extravascular fluids. The extent of serum IgG is related to severity of several diseases such as infections, so IgG has great diagnostic worth. Accurate measurement of IgG, needs exact and sensitive diagnostic instruments such as human IgG- specific monoclonal antibodies. Moreover, targeting of IgG has been useful in treatment of a number of diseases. According to experimental studies the Fc region of human IgG is highly immunogenic. Immunoinformatic is a division of immunology uses the computational biology for more precise diagnosis of diseases. The aim of this study was determination of conformational epitopes in the fragment of crystallizable (Fc) fragment of human IgG by immunoinformatic.
The amino acid residues and third structure of reference human IgG were found in protein data bank (PDB). Second IgG structure was defined by Phyre2 software (http://www.sbg.bio.ic.ac.uk/~phyre2/). Conformational epitopes of the Fc fragment in human IgG were specified by ElliPro (http://tools.iedb.org/ellipro/) and DiscoTope (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/DiscoTope) softwares.
In this study two conformational epitopes (one in constant heavy chain 2 (CH2) domain and another one common between CH2 and CH3 domains) sited in Fc fragment of human IgG were determined by ElliPro software. Also, two conformational epitopes (Both common between CH2 and CH3 domains) located to Fc fragment of human IgG were determined by DiscoTope software.
In this study a number of conformational epitopes located to Fc fragment of human IgG were determined by two immunoinformatic softwares (ElliPro and DiscoTope). The epitopes recognized by both softwares were situated in CH2, CH3 or both of these domains in the human IgG heavy chain. Thus, it seems that CH2 and CH3 domains of Fc region in human IgG are highly immunogenic. Moreover, ElliPro and DiscoTope softwares can be useful tools for identification of epitopes located to Fc fragment of human IgG.

Cancer is one of the most important health issues in the current and next centuries. Understanding the mechanism of interaction between antibody-protein residues is essential for designing targeted anticancer drugs based on monoclonal antibodies. Prediction of the effective structure is the first step for production of monoclonal antibodies.
This paper is a systematic review of the state-of-the-art researches on prediction of interaction sites and specification of antibody structures. Artificial neural networks or web servers are frequently used for evaluation of interaction sites while some researchers have employed evolutionary algorithms for prediction of the effective structure of antibodies. Accordingly, 14 methods based on the protein spatial structure, 28 researches based on the molecular amino-acide sequence (without usage of the spatial structure), and 18 antigen/antibody structure prediction techniques were reviewed.
We demonstrated that the accuracy of structure-based methods can be increased up to 80% while the acuracy of sequence-based methods was rarely better than 75%. Since the spatial structure of many antibodies is unknown, some researchers raised the accuracy (even to 96%) by only antibody sequences able to interact with some similar antigens in training neural networks. Therefore, we suggest this approach for structure prediction of monoclonal antibodies because of its adequate high accuracy.
In this paper, after reviewing available methods for prediction of antibody-protein interaction sites, some suggestions were made for effective prediction of structure of monoclonal antibodies.

Upper respiratory tract infection (URTI), the most common infectious disease among trained endurance athletes, declines the athletic performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of IL-8 gene polymorphisms on upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) incidence.
This is a historic cohort study and one hundred healthy elite male athletes were classified as either healthy or prone to frequent URTI. Taking blood samples, DNA isolation, multiplex PCR, and PCR-RFLP were carried out. Using the QIAmp DNA Blood Mini Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany), genomic DNA was extracted. For comparison of the distribution of genotypes between two groups and for estimating odds ratios (OR) for URTI susceptibility in relation to the IL-8-251 polymorphism, Pearson’s chi-square and Logistic regression method were used respectively.
The IL-8-251 genotype distribution significantly differed between athletes with URTI and healthy athletes (P=0.01). The IL-8 low genotypes (AA) were observed at a greater frequency in the illness-prone group compared with the healthy group (46.81% vs. 7.55%).
Findings from this study have identified a potential role of genetic variation in influencing the risk for URTI in athletic populations and SNPs in the IL-8-251 genes were associated with an altered risk profile. These measures may have a predictive value in the identification of individuals who are more likely to experience recurrent infections when exposed to high physical stress in the areas of athletic endeavor

The relationship between nanotechnology and immunology can be evaluated from different aspects. The application of nanotechnology and immunology is widespread and has important features in medical biotechnology. Delivery of active immunological compounds to the target sites using nano-carriers is one of the issues related to nanotechnology and immunology. Moreover, successful application of nanotechnology in the field of immunology resulted in development of new generations of vaccines, adjuvants and immunomodulatory drugs that aim to improve response to infectious and non-infectious diseases. Nanotechnology plays a key role in the formation of new vaccines and immunosuppressive agents. On the other hand, the manipulation and control of objects at the nano scale level can promote our conception of immune responses. In current review we discuss the effect of size, charge, shape, hydrophobic and porosity properties of a compound on the immune response and investigate the role of nanotech‌nology in engineering of each of these features. It is expected that in future the collaboration between nanotech‌nology and immunology could lead to new strategies in prevention and treatment of human diseases.

In the nature, organisms encounter different pathogens and microorganisms and in order to survive, they need to recognize and fight them. Pathogens include compounds in the structure of an organism such as lipopolysaccharides, nucleic acid and lipoproteins that can be recognized by the immune system. These compounds are known as Pathogen-Associated Molecular Patterns (PAMPs). A group of cell receptors that are named Toll-Like Receptors (TLR) recognize PAMPs. Today, at least 14 receptors in this family are discovered and each one is responsible for recognizing PAMPs. TLR9, one of these receptors, recognizes the DNA of bacteria and viruses. Stimulation of this receptor releases immune cells and activates both innate and adaptive immune systems. Sequences containing unmethylated CPG dinucleotides activate Toll-like Receptor 9 (TLR9). Scientists make synthetic forms of CPG sequences and use them in many immune researches like vaccine adjuvants. In addition, CPG dinucleotides can be used to stimulate the response of T lynphocytes against tumors, regulate cellular immune responses and activate humoral immunity.

Cupping therapy (hejamat) is one of the therapeutic methods used in traditional medicine that it is still common in many of the contemporary societies. In spite of the progress of science, we have less information on the traditional and alternative medicine including cupping. With the study of mechanism of action of cupping, it will be more convincing for the traditional medicine to use it more easily for the treatment. It can then be presented to society with more convincing scientific base. The aim of this study was to compare venous blood with blood of cupping with regards to biochemical, hematological and immunological factors and evaluate the variation of those factors. Materials: The sample of study was 56 healthy volunteer men aged between 20 to 40 years. At the beginning of study (the first) 16 ml blood sample from vein was obtained from each volunteer for the comparison of biochemical, hematological and immunological factors. The cupping treatment was then given to the volunteers and another blood sample from cupping was taken for comparison of these factors. The biochemical factors were evaluated by Selectra auto analyzer, hematological factors by KX-21 cell counter and sedimentation rate was measured by Westergreen method. Cytokines were measured by sensitive sandwich ELISA, using the kit from R&D system. Analysis of the results showed significant differences in many of the biochemical, hematological and immunological factors between the venous blood and the cupping blood. Based on the results of the comparison between venous blood and cupping blood, the venous blood and cupping blood are different, both in components and immunologic response.