Thirty-four Leishmania isolates obtained from Costa Rican patients, from different geographical areas, were characterized by isoenzyme electrophoresis and indirect immunofluorescense with monoclonal antibodies. Thirty-two were characterized as L. panamensis strains and two were L. braziliensis variants. We confirm the evident predominance of L. panamensis as the main etiological agent of leishm...

introduction: antifertility effects of naturally occuring antisperm antibody (asa) in infertile couples and studies on experimental immunization of various animals with sperm antigens represent asa as an immunocontraceptive target. the effects of different factors on sperm immunogenecity and asa production have been studied and different results have been reported. in this study, whole sperm im...

background: antifertility effect of naturally occuring antisperm antibody (asa) in infertile couples and studies on experimental immunization of various animals with sperm antigens represents asa as immunocontraceptive target. despite extensive research on the effects of different factors on sperm immunogenecity and asa production variable result have been reported. objective: to study whole sp...

OBJECTIVE To determine positivity and clinical correlation of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA), taking into account the interference of antinuclear antibodies (ANA). MATERIAL AND METHODS A prospective study was conducted in the Laboratory of Immunology of the National Cuban Center of Medical Genetic during one year. Two hounded sixty-seven patients with indication for ANCA determ...

Pemphigoid gestationis is a rare vesiculobullous dermatosis of pregnancy and puerperium. It is commonly seen in second or third trimester. Skin lesions are characterized by pruritic, urticarial plaques with the development of tense vesicles and bullae. Histopathology demonstrates a subepidermal eosinophil-rich vesiculation. Direct immunofluorescence microscopy reveals linear complement 3 and im...

The E7 protein of high risk HPV types has been found with different molecular weights, mainly because of phosphorylation, an event that changes protein charge and mobility in SDS-PAGE. Distribution of E7 protein in the cellular compartments has also been subject of debate as some groups report the protein in nucleus and others in cytoplasm. The different subcellular distribution and molecular w...

Injection of a combination of H2O2 and vanadate (H/V) into the portal vein of rat livers resulted in inhibition of protein tyrosine phosphatase activity and led to a dramatic enhanced in vivo protein tyrosine phosphorylation. Some of the phosphorylated proteins were identified as the beta-subunit of the insulin receptor, the insulin receptor substrate 1 (pp185), PLC-gamma (pp145), and a 100 kDa...

The objective of this study was to identify and characterize the immunological and molecular aspects of Human Enterovirus (HEV) associated with aseptic meningitis cases in São Paulo State, Brazil. Clinical samples (cerebrospinal fluid CSF, stool and sera) were analyzed from 21 viral meningitis suspected cases collected in the period from 1998 to 1999. The isolated virus were identified as belon...