background: human peripheral blood nk cells constitutively express cd56 and cd16 antigens. peripheral blood nk cells seem to be strongly related with decidual nk cells, and may reflect the decidual nk cell functional status. there are varied reports concerning the relationship between nk cell cytotoxicity in women with recurrent spontaneous abortion. objective: to study nk activity in women wit...

objective: stevioside is a natural non-caloric sweetener which has been reported to have anti-inflammatory activity.  the aim of  the present study was to examine in vitro and in vivo effects of  stevioside on rats  plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor- α (tnf-α),  interleukin-1β (il-1β), tnf-α and il-1β release from lipopolysaccharide(lps)-stimulated rat peripheral blood mononuclear cells (p...

from 1996 to 2002, fifty three patients with major beta-thalassemia received allogeneic peripheral blood stem cell trans plantation (pbsct). median age was 6 years .twenty two were class i, 17 class ii and 14 class iii. all of the donors were hla-identical. conditioning regimen for class i and ii patients consisted of cyclophosphamide (cy) 50 mg/kg/day for 4 days + busulfan (bu) 3.5 mg/kg for 4...

background: recognition of helminth-derived pathogen associated molecular patterns (pamps) by pattern recognition receptors (prrs), including toll like recep­tors (tlrs) is the first step towards initiating anti–helminth immune re­sponses. methods : using somatic antigens of ostertagia occidentalis, an important abomasal parasite of ruminants, the expression of ovine tlr2 and tlr4 in peripheral...

background: parasitological methods for the diagnosis of visceral leishmania-sis (vl) require invasive procedures, so serological and molecular approaches have been developed but are not generally applicable in the field. we evaluated a loop mediated isothermal amplification (lamp) assay using blood from vl pa-tients and compared it to nested pcr. methods: forty-seven subjects with clinical fea...

the cytotoxic activity of natural killer cells is usually tested by radioactive assay csi cr release assay), which detects the release of cytoplasmic contents after plasma membrane disintegration of dying cells. in contrast to this indirect evaluation of cytotoxicity, the assessment of cell damage by flow cytometry aims to provide a more exact characterization of the death pathway via detection...

conclusions in conclusion, occult hbv was found in 36% of patients with negative results for hbsag, but positive results for hcv. detection of hbv-dna in both pbmcs and plasma together in comparison with plasma alone provided more true identification of obi.the svr rate was significantly higher in coinfected patients than mono-infected ones. background occult hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection (...

background: invasive fungal infections (ifis) are chief infectious complications in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (hsct). however, the diagnosis of fungal infections is difficult, and often empiric treatment initiates. since there is no data available on the prevalence of antifungal drugs administration in allogeneic hsct recipients in iran, we decided to conduct t...

objectives the cause of rheumatoid arthritis (ra) as a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease is still unknown. it appears that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in its pathogenesis. recent studies reveal that in addition to the cns, immune cells synthesis neurotransmitters so that these catecholamines can regulate immune functions. the aim of this study is to evaluate the dop...

background: the appendix is considered as part of the gut-associated lymphoid tissue; however, lymphocyte subsets in this tissue are not fully defined. objective: to investigate and compare the function and phenotype of lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood and appendix of patients with normal and inflamed appendix tissues. methods: peripheral blood samples and appendiceal mononuclear cells we...