Toxoplasma gondii is one of the most prevalent parasitic infections in world. Rh, NED and Me49 are of the most prevalent clonal types of the parasite isolated till now. Differences in pathogenicity and virulence of different types have been investigated in different studies. No controlled study was performed to compare the ability of different types to initiate humoral immune response. We inves...

The Wnt signaling pathway controls numerous cell fates during animal development. Its inappropriate activity can lead to cancer in many human tissues. A key effector of the canonical Wnt pathway is beta-catenin (or Drosophila Armadillo), a highly unstable phosphorylated protein that shuttles rapidly between nucleus and cytoplasm. Wnt signaling inhibits its phosphorylation and degradation; this ...

Background & Objective: DNA vaccines as a new generation of vaccines require adjuvant to improve vaccine immunogenicity; adjuvants can also increase the DNA vaccine efficacy. In this study, the effects of the host’s interferon-inducible Mx protein as bio adjuvant and conventional alum adjuvant were evaluated.   Materials & Methods: The BALB/c mice were immunized by different prime-boost strate...

Background: Artemisia diffusa contains a new type of sesquiterpene lactone with an endoperoxide group (Tehranolide). Objective: Due to the existing similarity between the structures of Tehranolide and Artemisinin, it was hypothesized that Tehranolide would have similar effects as Artemisinin. In this study, the immunotherapeutic effec-tiveness of Tehranolide was investigated by direct intra-tum...

otitis media with effusion (ome) is very common in pediatric patients. immune reactions in serum and middle ear system play roles in the etiology, pathogenesis and prevention of otitis media. immunologically active antigens interact with immunocompetent cells in the lamina propria of the middle ear to produce a local immune response. in this investigation, 32 sera and 50 middle ear fluid sample...

foot and mouth disease (fmd) is highly contagious disease among cloven-hoofed animals. fmd virus has structural and non-structural proteins. vp1 is the most immunogenic structural peptides of fmd virus, applied for major vaccine studies. objective: construction of pet28-vp1 cassette for fmd virus type o/irn/2010 and expression vp1 peptide as the most immunogenic antigen was the aim of this stud...

successful clearance of hepatitis b virus (hbv) is a promising event in which host's immune system will attempt to get rid of the virus. the immunological events of hbsag seroclearance have attracted great attention in both natural history investigations and therapeutic trials. recent genome-wide association studies (gwas) has confirmed polymorphisms in the human leukocyte antigen (hla)-dp locu...

The Armadillo protein of Drosophila melanogaster is both a structural component of adherens junctions at apical cell membranes and also a key cytoplasmic transducer of the Wingless signalling pathway. We have used the Gal4-UAS system to over-express Armadillo in the Drosophila wing: this hyperactivates the Wingless pathway and leads to the formation of ectopic, supernumerary wing bristles. Here...

The vertebrate transcription factors TCF (T cell factor) and LEF (lymphocyte enhancer binding factor) interact with beta-catenin and are hypothesized to mediate Wingless/Wnt signaling. We have cloned a maternally expressed Drosophila TCF family member, dTCF. dTCF binds a canonical TCF DNA motif and interacts with the beta-catenin homolog Armadillo. Previous studies have identified two regions i...