1,721,011 research outputs found
Comparison of an in house and a commercial real-time polymerase chain reaction targeting Toxoplasma gondii RE gene using various samples collected from patients in Turkey
No full textkarakavuk, muhammet/0000-0002-2468-5564; Can, Huseyin/0000-0001-9633-9786Background: Toxoplasma gondii is an opportunistic protozoan parasite that can infect all warm-blooded animals including humans and cause serious clinical manifestations. Toxoplasmosis can be diagnosed using histological, serological, and molecular methods. in this study, we aimed to detect T. gondii RE gene in various human samples by in house and commercial real time polymerase chain reactions. Methods: A total of 38 suspected cases of toxoplasmosis [peripheral blood (n:12), amnion fluid (n:11), tissue (n:9), cerebrospinal fluid (n:5), and intraocular fluid (n:1)] were included to the study. An in house and a commercial RT-PCR were applied to investigate the T. gondii RE gene in these samples. Results: the compatibility rate of the two tests was 94.7% (37/38). When the commercial RT-PCR kit was taken as reference, the sensitivity and specificity of in house RT-PCR test was 87.5 and 100%. When the in house RT-PCR test was taken as reference, the commercial RT-PCR kit has 100% sensitivity and 96.8% specificity. Incompatibility was detected in only in a buffy coat sample with high protein content. Conclusions: Both the commercial and in house RT-PCR tests can be used to investigate T. gondii RE gene in various clinical specimens with their high sensitivity and specificity. in house RT-PCR assay can be favorable due to cost savings compared to using the commercial test.Scientific Research Projects Branch Directorate of Ege University, TurkeyEge University [2013-TIP-050]This study was partly supported by the grant given by the Scientific Research Projects Branch Directorate of Ege University, Turkey (Grant No: 2013-TIP-050) to Y.G. the funding body does not have any role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript
Evaluating the immune response and protection conferred by vaccine candidate toxoplasma gondii GRA8 protein
No full textToxoplasma gondii insan dâhil tüm sıcakkanlı hayvanları enfekte edebilen, insan ve hayvanlarda ciddi klinik tablolara yol açan zoonotik bir protozoondur. Dünya nüfusunun ortalama %30‘u T. gondii ile enfektedir. Toksoplazmozis çiftlik hayvanlarında da büyük ekonomik kayıplara neden olmaktadır. Bu yüzden T. gondii‘ye karşı aşı geliştirmek oldukça önemlidir.
Bu amaçla daha önceki çalışmamızda kuvvetli immun yanıt uyaran GRA8 geni öncelikle biyoinformatik olarak incelenmiş, proteinin hücre içi ve transmembran kısımları atılıp, sinyal peptidi eklenmiştir. Protein pcDNA.3.3 vektörü içine klonlanarak sadece GRA8 plazmid içeren ve CpG+Escort ile takviye edilmiş GRA8 plazmid DNA aşıları geliştirilmiştir. Daha sonra Swiss Webster fareler üç hafta ara ile iki kez SC olarak aşılanmış ve uyarılan sıvısal immun yanıt Western Blot ve ELISA ile hücresel immun ise flow sitometri ve MTT testleri ile belirlenmiştir. DNA aşılarının koruyuculuğu, 7-8 tane T. gondii PRU suşuna ait doku kistlerinin oral yoldan uygulanması ile tespit edilmiştir. Dokularda oluşan kistler faz kontrast mikroskobu ile sayılmıştır.
Elde edilen sonuçlara göre, aşılama sonrası sadece GRA8 plazmid ve Cpg+Escort+GRA8 plazmid içeren aşı grupları kontrollere göre kuvvetli IgG yanıtı uyarmıştır (P<0,001). IgG1 ve IgG2a yanıtı incelendiğinde Th1-Th2 kutuplaşmasının dengeli olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Aşı gruplarında, IFN-γ salgılayan CD4 T lenfositleri ile CD8 T lenfosit oranlarının kontrollere göre sırasıyla 1,31-1,75 ve 1,17-1,70 kat arasında arttığı saptanmıştır. Stimülasyon indeksleri aşı gruplarında kontrol gruplarına göre %7-%34 arasında yüksek olduğu tespit edilmiştir. GRA8 plazmid aşısı uygulanan farelerde doku kisti sayısı 440,74±343,35 olup PBS ve Cpg+Escort+Boş plazmid uygulanan farelere göre belirgin olarak azalmıştır (P<0,0001, ****). Cpg+Escort+GRA8 plazmid aşısı uygulanan farelerde ise doku kisti sayısı ise 804,76±715,87 olup PBS (P=0,0086, **) ve Cpg+Escort+Boş plazmid (P=0,0007, ***) uygulanan farelere göre belirgin şekilde düşmüştür. GRA8 plazmid aşı grubunda oluşan doku kisti sayısı Cpg+Escort+GRA8 plazmid grubuna göre belirgin bir şekilde azalmıştır (P<0,05, *).
Sonuç olarak bu çalışmada protein mikroarray taraması ile seçilen aşı adayı GRA8 antijeninden geliştirilen DNA aşılarının kuvvetli sıvısal ve hücresel immun yanıtı uyarabildiği ve toksoplazmozise karşı kısmi korunma sağladığı tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca ileride yapılacak çalışmalarda GRA8 antijeni ve diğer T. gondii antijenlerinin kullanıldığı multi-antijenik DNA aşılarının geliştirilmesiyle toksoplazmozise karşı tam bir korunmanın olasılığı öngörülmektedir.Toxoplasma gondii is a zoonotic protozoan that can infect all warm-blooded animals including humans and may lead to serious clinical manifestations especially in immunocompromised and pregnant humans and animals. Almost 30% of the world population is infected with T. gondii. Along with the treatment cost of the disease, the agent may cause large economic losses in farm animals. Therefore, it is very important to develop a vaccine against T. gondii.
For this purpose, GRA8 protein that showed high immunogenicity in our previous study was firstly examined by bioinformatics. After removing intracellular and transmembrane fragments of the protein, a signal peptide was added. The naked GRA plasmid and the CpG+Escort+GRA8 plasmid DNA vaccines were developed by cloning the gene fragment into the pcDNA.3.3 vector. Swiss Webster mice were vaccinated twice, at three weeks intervals. The sıvısal immune response was determined both Western Blot and ELISA, and the cellular immunity was determined both flow cytometer and MTT assay. Protection efficacy of DNA vaccines was determined by challenging each mice orally with 7-8 cysts of T. gondii PRU strain.
According to the results, GRA8 plasmid and CpG+Escort+GRA8 plasmid vaccine groups induced strong IgG response compared to controls (P<0.001). As we examined the IgG1 and IgG2a responses, a balanced Th1-Th2 polarization was seen. IFN-γ secreting CD4 T lymphocyte ratios increased 1.45 to 2 and 1.6 to 2 times compared to the controls. In the vaccine groups, IFN-γ secreting CD4 T and CD8 T lymphocyte ratios increased 1.31 to 1.75 and 1.17 to 1.70 times compared to the controls, respectively. Stimulation index were found to be high in the vaccine groups which was between 7% and 34% compared to the control groups. The number of tissue cysts in the GRA8 plasmid group was 440.74±343.35 that decreased significantly compared to PBS and CpG+Escort+Empty plasmid groups (P<0.0001, ****). In CpG+Escort+GRA8 plasmid group, the number of tissue cysts found to be 804.76±715.87, which decreased significantly compared to PBS (P=0.0086, **) and CpG+Escort+Empty plasmid groups (P=0.0007, ***). The amount of tissue cysts in the GRA8 plasmid vaccine group was significantly lower than the CpG+Escort+GRA8 plasmid group (P<0.05, *).
Overall, DNA vaccines developed from vaccine candidate GRA8 antigen which was selected by protein microarray screening showed strong sıvısal and sıvısal immune response and provide partial protection against toxoplasmosis mice model. Furthermore, development of multi-antigenic DNA vaccines using GRA8 antigen and other T. gondii antigens future studies may provide complete protection against toxoplasmosis
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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