Three hundred and twenty four serum samples, collected from different areas of Punjab, NWFP and Azad Kashmir, were screened for Toxo IgG and IgM antibody titres utilizing the Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Of the total 149 (46%) samples were positive for IgG antibody. Seven (2.1%) showed titre greater than 130. Ninety sera (27.7%) were positive for IgM antibody, twenty six (8%) had ...

A highly sensitive immuno-PCR method specific for the detection of antigens of and antibodies to bovine herpesvirus 1 was established. This assay attained a high sensitivity of up to 10(7.0) times higher than that of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or PCR for antigen detection and 10(5.0) times higher than that of ELISA for antibody detection.

We studied the incidence of reported tularaemia by year and region and the prevalence of antibodies against Francisella tularensis in the adult general population in Finland. Moreover, we assessed the correlation between vole population cycles and human tularaemia outbreaks. The seroprevalence study made use of serum samples from a nationwide population-based health survey (Health 2000). The sa...

Our natural language understanding system outputs a list of diseases, findings, and appliances found in a chest x-ray report. The system described in this paper links those diseases and findings that are causally related. Using Bayesian networks to model the conceptual and diagnostic information found in a chest xray we are able to infer more specific information about thefindings that are link...

The enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay has advanced into a useful and widely applicable tool for the evaluation of T-cell responses in both humans and animal models of diseases and/or vaccine candidates. Using synthetic peptides (either individually or as overlapping peptide mixtures) or whole antigens, total lymphocyte or isolated T-cell subset responses can be assessed either after shor...

X-linked hydrocephaly is a rare sex-linked genetic recessive condition occurring in 1/30,000 deliveries. Adduction of thumbs and mental retardation are additional associated clinical findings. We describe two cases of X-linked hydrocephaly with associated adducted thumbs that were diagnosed prenatally with the combined use of three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound and fetal blood sampling for cytoge...

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) represent a potentially useful tool for studying the molecular mechanisms of disease thanks to their ability to generate patient-specific hiPSC clones. However, previous studies have reported that DNA methylation profiles, including those for imprinted genes, may change during passaging of hiPSCs. This is particularly problematic for hiPSC models of...

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my supervisor, Prof. Antonella Carsana, who guided me through this project with her scientific attitude and gave me the opportunity to learn many things. I was very fortunate to work in a friendly research group. I am very grateful to my colleagues that made my Ph.D time a fruitful and joyful experience. Special thanks to Dr. Alberto Zullo for his sci...

Two major decapping enzymes are involved in the decay of eukaryotic mRNA, Dcp2 and DcpS. Despite the detection of robust DcpS decapping activity in cell extract, minimal to no decapping is detected from human Dcp2 (hDcp2) in extract. We now demonstrate that one reason for the lack of detectable hDcp2 activity in extract is due to the presence of inhibitory trans factor(s). Furthermore, we demon...