objective: despite availability of an effective vaccine against hepatitis b virus (hbv), the global prevalence of this virus infection has not diminished significantly. contrary to numerous other human viruses, hbv does not have the ability to propagate in cell culture. however, infectious virus has been produced by transfection of human hepatoma cells with plasmids that contain full length hbv...

multiple sclerosis (ms) is an inflammatory, multifocal, immune-mediated disease of the central nervous system that women are at a higher risk to acquire than men. myxovirus resistance protein a (mxa) is used as a predictive marker of bioactivity of interferon-beta (ifn-β) therapy in ms patients. this study was undertaken in west of iran to investigate gender differences in the expression level ...

Background: Interferons are some kind of natural cytokines which express in response to a variety of antigens including viral RNA, bacterial products, and tumor proteins. Interferon beta is used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Moreover, this drug inhibits cellular proliferation as well as angiogenesis and as a result, helps to cure cancer. In this research, i...

BACKGROUND With the introduction of cyclosporine A (CsA), long-term allograft function has significantly improved. Problems related to limited therapeutic margins and CsA toxicity remain unsolved. Until now there have been no reliable, practical markers to measure the biologic activity of CsA in vivo. METHODS Expression of NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T cells)-regulated genes (interleuki...

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency and severity of leucopenia during antiviral treatment in patients with hepatitis C and the effectiveness of G-CSF (Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor) in its management. STUDY DESIGN An observational study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Shafi Clinic, Rawalpindi, from July 2005 to July 2007. METHODOLOGY Patients with Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) pos...

introduction genetic background has known to be associated with the outcome of human t cell lymphotropic virus (htlv) type i infection. in the present study we investigate the association between gm-csf gene polymorphisms with the outcome of htlv-i infection. materials and methods we analyzed 3 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the promter region of granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating fa...

Recent identification of key components in the pattern recognition receptor pathway of retinoic acid-inducible gene-1-like receptors, coupled with characterisation of a new cytoplasmic DNA-sensing molecule, have led to a greater understanding of the role viral nucleic acids play in activating innate immunity. This activation of type I interferon is essential for both limiting viral infection an...