Occurrence of the Legionella species in the respiratory samples of patients with pneumonia symptoms from Ahvaz,Iran; first detection of Legionella cherrii

Molecular Biology Reports - This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of Legionella species in the respiratory samples of patients with pneumonia symptoms from Ahvaz, Iran by culture and the...     

Development of an indirect sandwich ELISA for detection of urinary antigen,using Legionella pneumophila PAL protein

Legionella pneumophila peptidoglycan-associated lipoprotein (PAL) protein is an extremely conserved antigen among Legionella species. In this study, rabbit and rat anti-PAL immunoglobulin G antibodies were produced by immunization with purified, recombinant PAL (r-PAL) protein of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 and used as capture and detection antibodies in the PAL antigen-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect urinary PAL antigen. Urine samples were obtained from rats experimentally infected with L. pneumophila serogroup 1. The PAL antigen was measured in urine samples of 40 infected and 40 uninfected rats. After choosing the cut-off value of 0.192, the sensitivity and specificity of the PAL antigen-based ELISA were 87.5 and 97.5 %, respectively. The results obtained by PAL antigen base ELISA were compared with those obtained by Biotest. The PAL antigen was detected efficiently by both of the assays and all of the control human urine samples were negative by the ELISA test. The PAL antigen-based ELISA assay was relatively simple to perform, precise, highly sensitive and specific, and reproducible. Based on our data the PAL antigen-based ELISA described here is the first indirect sandwich ELISA for urinary antigen detection which could easily be applied for diagnosis of Legionnaires disease.     

Efficacy Comparison of TAT Peptide-Functionalized PEGylated Liposomal Doxorubicin in C26 and B16F0 Tumor Mice Models

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - This study aimed to evaluate the antitumor activity of PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin (Dox) functionalized with TAT peptide through...     

Anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule RNA aptamer-conjugated liposomal doxorubicin as an efficient targeted therapy in mice bearing colon carcinoma tumor model

To overcome the lack of selectivity and nonspecific biodistribution of drugs in the body, targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic agents with aptamers is a very effective method. In this strategy, aptamers could be specifically identified and attach to targeted molecules on the cancerous cells and deliver the chemotherapeutic agents to desired tissue with minimal or no damage to the normal cells. In this study, we designed anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) RNA aptamer conjugated PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin (ER-lip) to investigate its in vitro and in vivo anticancer abilities. Data showed that EpCAM aptamer was able to enhance cell uptake and cytotoxic effects of Dox in C26 cell line. The biodistribution study indicated that ER-lip enhanced the tumor accumulation of Dox compared to Caelyx. Also, double staining of isolated tumor cells with anti-CD44-PE-cy5 and anti-EpCAM Cy-7 antibodies indicated that tumor cells expressed a high level of EpCAM⁺ CD44⁺ cells (p ≤ .001) compared to cultured C26 cell line. in vivo results showed that ER-lip promoted survival and reduced tumor growth rate in animal model compared to Caelyx. In conclusion, these results suggested that the ER-lip could be served as promising formulation for the treatment of cancers with the high expression of EpCAM.