Toxoplasmosis remains a world-threatening disease largely because of the lack of a fully effective vaccine. Here, we created a ΔGRA17 mutant by disrupting the virulence factor GRA17 using CRISPR-Cas9 method. Then, we tested whether ΔGRA17 tachyzoites can be used as a live-attenuated vaccine against acute, chronic, and congenital Toxoplasma gondii infection in mice. Immune response evoked by ΔGR...

despite the numerous advantages of large dams, there is still a deep suspicion about the real,long-term benefits and costs of their construction. land use change on a vast scale, displacement of a largepopulation of indigenous people, loss of biodiversity and production of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as environmental, socioeconomic and cultural consequences resulting therefrom, indicate c...

Check-dams are the most common structures for controlling soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. However, the effect of check-dams on carbon sequestration, along with sediment transport and deposition, has not been assessed over large areas. In this study, we evaluated the carbon sequestration function of check-dams in the Loess Plateau. The results indicate that there were approximately 11 000 che...

Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to chlorpyrifos (CPF; O,O-diethyl-O-[3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinyl] phosphorothioate) by gavage (in corn oil) from gestation day (GD) 6 to postnatal day (PND) 10. Dosages to the dams were 0 (control), 0.3 (low), 1.0 (middle) or 5.0 mg/kg/day (high). On GD 20 (4 h post gavage), the blood CPF concentration in fetuses was about one half the level found in th...

This research intends to develop a method based on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict permanent earthquake-induced deformation of the earth dams and embankments. For this purpose, data sets of observations from 152 published case histories on the performance of the earth dams and embankments, during the past earthquakes, was used. In order to predict earthquake-induced deformation o...

INTRODUCTION Breast feeding has long term effects on the developing immune system which outlive passive immunization of the neonate. We have investigated the transfer of milk immune cells and examined the result of transfer once the recipients were adult. METHODS Non-transgenic mouse pups were foster-nursed by green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgenic dams for 3 weeks and the fate of GFP+ ce...

Among the structural and non-structural methods of flood control, rockfill dams are a kind of detention structures that increase travel time and reduce the maximum instantaneous flood discharge. Due to the rapid and automatic effect of these dams, flood reduction happens more quickly. In this research, the best arrangement of rockfill dams at Taleghan basin was determined based on the cost of r...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the quality of economic data provided in applications to the World Health Organization (WHO) Model List of Essential Medicines and to evaluate the role of these data in decision-making by the expert committee that considers the applications. METHODS We analysed applications submitted to the WHO Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines between 2002...

A survey conducted near a dam-site on the Paraguay-Argentine border showed the area to be highly endemic for Chagas’ disease. It also showed that new housing unsuited to the disease vector’s prol$eration did not eliminate the prob/em, indicating a strong need for health education capable of guiding people away from traditional behavior patterm tending to encourage the vector and cause infection.