In the brain of patients with multiple sclerosis, activated microglia/macrophages appear in active lesions and in normal appearing white matter. However, whether they play a beneficial or a detrimental role in the development of the pathology remains a controversial issue. The production of pro-inflammatory molecules by chronically activated microglial cells is suggested to contribute to the pr...

The role of the MHC class II transactivator (CIITA) in Ag presentation by astrocytes and susceptibility to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) was examined using CIITA-deficient mice and newly created transgenic mice that used the glial fibrillary acidic protein promoter to target CIITA expression in astrocytes. CIITA was required for class II expression on astrocytes. Like class II...

Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a CD4(+) T lymphocyte-mediated disease of the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by mononuclear cell infiltration, demyelination, and paralysis. We previously demonstrated a role for chemokines in acute and relapsing EAE pathogenesis. Presently, we investigated the role of CC chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2) in acute EAE. CCR2(-/-) mice did ...

We developed a quick genetic approach to screen variants of the intimin gene (eae) by using a heteroduplex mobility assay (HMA) that targets the 5' conserved region of eae. The eae variants were categorized into 4 major HMA types and 10 minor subtypes.

sporadic alzheimer’s disease (sad) is a multi-factorial disease caused by genetic, epigenetic, environmental and metabolic factors. current understandings of the possible mechanisms of ad such as inflammation and oxidative stresses in the brain have led us to investigation of potential ad therapeutics. currently herbal medicines with fewer side effects comparing to other chemical medicine are i...

background: the interaction between follicular cells and oocyte leads to a change in gene expression involved in oocyte maturation processes. objective: the purpose of this study was to quantify the expression of more common genes involved in follicular growth and oocyte developmental competence. materials and methods: in this experimental study, the expression of genes was evaluated with qrt-p...

background: in this study, we evaluated the incidence of apoptosis at the ultrastructural levels and expression of some apoptosis-related genes in vitrified human ovarian tissue just after warming. methods: human ovarian tissue biopsies from 23 women after caesarean section were transported to the laboratory within 2 hours, and then they were cut into small pieces. some pieces were vitrified an...

channel activities, particularly those of calcium channels, have vital roles in the process of sperm maturation, motility and sperm-egg interaction. a group of the recently discovered ion channels associated with these processes is four novel channel-like proteins known as catsper (cation channel sperm) gene family. catsper1 and catsper2 show sperm specific expression patterns. however, neither...

background: linum album, a herbaceous and medicinal plant, has been shown to accumulate anti-tumor podophyllotoxin (ptox) and related lignans. objective: in this study, we have verified the time-course of cell growth, lignan production in cells treated with chitosan and chitin oligomers. to study mechanism of chitosan and chitin oligomers action, expression of phenylalanine ammonio-lyase (pal),...

background: toxoplasmosis is a worldwide-distributed infection which is mostly asymptomatic but can cause serious health problems in congenitally-infected newborns and immunecompromised individuals. research is undergoing both to improve toxoplasma serological tests, which play the main role in laboratory diagnosis of the infection, and develop an effective vaccine to prevent the infection. som...