At the beginning of his medical career, George Spence signed a contract with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) as surgeon for the Fort Albany fur trading post located on James Bay in British North America. During his first three years (1738-41), Spence encountered formidable personal and professional challenges which can be partially reconstructed through examination of surgeon's journal for 1740-...

Inwardly rectifying K(+) (Kir) channels, serving as natural molecular nanomachines, transport potassium ions across the plasma membrane of the cell. Along the ion permeation pathway, three relatively narrow regions (the selectivity filter (SF), the inner helix bundle crossing (HBC), and the cytosolic G loop) may serve as gates to control ion permeation. Our previous molecular dynamics simulatio...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a serious risk factor for several severe liver diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. HBV, like other viruses, uses several mechanisms to escape from specific immune responses including the use of mutations in the genome which lead to epitope variations. There are several immune responses, including T helper cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes,...

Capsid assembly and stability of hepatitis B virus (HBV) core protein (HBc) particles depend on balanced electrostatic interactions between encapsidated nucleic acids and an arginine-rich domain (ARD) of HBc in the capsid interior. Arginine-deficient ARD mutants preferentially encapsidated spliced viral RNA and shorter DNA, which can be fully or partially rescued by reducing the negative charge...

INTRODUCTION. In patients with chronic hepatitis C it is still debated whether previous exposure to the hepatitis B virus, diagnosed from the presence of the anti-HBc antibody, is linked to a greater risk of severe hepatitis. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether the presence of anti-HBc antibodies is associated with cirrhosis in patients with HBsAg-negative chronic hepatitis C. MATERIAL...

Sudan is a highly endemic area for hepatitis B virus (HBV), and >5% of blood donors are chronically infected. To examine potential strategies to improve HBV blood safety, 404 replacement donor samples previously screened for HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) were tested for antibody to HBV core (anti-HBc), anti-surface antigen (anti-HBs), and HBV DNA. Of 145 anti-HBc-containing samples (36%) identifi...

Covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) is a unique episomal replicative intermediate molecule of hepatitis B virus (HBV) which plays a key role in viral persistence. The aim of this study was to prove cccDNA persistence in the liver tissue of patients negative for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and positive for antibody to hepatitis core antigen (anti-HBc). Intrahepatic HBV DNA and cccDNA...

We selected the conserved sequence in the stalk region of influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) trimmer, the long alpha helix (LAH), as the vaccine candidate sequence, and inserted it into the major immunodominant region (MIR) of hepatitis B virus core protein (HBc), and, by using the E. coli expression system, we prepared a recombinant protein vaccine LAH-HBc in the form of virus-like particles (...

Immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies against hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) and hepatitis A virus (anti-HAV) were determined in 41 cases of acute viral hepatitis. In sera positive for anti-HBc or anti-HAV, IgM was separated from IgG by reorienting sucrose gradient high-speed centrifugation, and the IgG- and IgM-containing serum fractions were tested for the presence of specific antibody by ra...

The aims of the present study were to provide accurate prevalence of acute and occult hepatis B infection and hepatis C infection among potential blood donors in Cambodia and to study the accuracy of ELISA tests used for blood donor screening. A cross-sectional study was performed on samples collected from potential volunteer blood donors (n = 1,200) in two districts in rural Cambodia. The samp...