Pollen morphology of Campanula (Campanulaceae) and allied genera in Iran with special focus on its systematic implication

Pollen grains of 47 taxa of Campanulaceae including 35 taxa of Campanula that represent its five subgenera and nine sections are investigated. Moreover, five species and three subspecies representing three sections in Asyneuma and one species of each genera Legousia, Michauxia, Zeugandra and Theodorovia were studied by light and scanning electron microscopy. The basic shape of the pollen grains was spheroidal. The apertures vary from tri- to hexa-porate. The sculpturing pattern of exine was rugulate-echinate, rugulate-microechinate or in few species rugulate-microreticulate and microechinate. The most valuable characters for subgeneric classification were the length and density of echini. The length of echini were significantly long (> 2 μm) in C. sclerotricha, Legousia falcata and Michauxia laevigata. Pollen grains show low variation in different species of subgen. Rapunculus, but were variable among different species of some groups, such as sect. Rupestres, probably indicating their non-monophyly despite homogeneity with respect to other morphological characters. Pollen morphology does not support recognition of Asyneuma, Legousia, Michauxia, Symphyandra, Theodorovia, and Zeugandra as separated from Campanula, since none of them exhibit any unique feature.     

Cockroach wings-promoted safe and greener synthesis of silver nanoparticles and their insecticidal activity

Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering - Simpler and biocompatible greener approaches for the assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) have been the focus lately which have minimum environmental damage and...     

Designing of a Novel Fusion Protein Vaccine Candidate Against Human Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) Using Immunoinformatics and Structural Approaches

Leishmaniasis is caused by an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite. The clinical forms of leishmaniasis differ from cutaneous leishmaniasis, mucocutaneous leishmaniasis and visceral leishmaniasis (VL) which depend on the parasite species and the host’s immune responses. There are significant challenges to the available anti-leishmanial drug therapy, particularly in severe forms of disease, and the rise of drug resistance has made it more difficult. Currently, no licensed vaccines have been introduced to the market for the control and elimination of VL. A potential target for use in candidate vaccines against leishmaniasis has been shown to be leishmania Kinetoplastid membrane protein-11 (KMP-11) antigen. In this study, we chose KMP-11 antigen as target antigen in our vaccine construct. In addition, B-type flagellin (fliC) was used as an adjuvant for enhancing vaccine immunogenicity. The GSGSGSGSGSG linker was applied to link the KMP-11 antigen and fliC (KMP-11-fliC) to construct our fusion protein. Bioinformatics approaches such as; 3D homology modeling, CTL, B-cell, MHC class I and II epitopes prediction, allergenicity, antigenicity evaluations, molecular docking, fast simulations of flexibility of docked complex and in silico cloning were employed to analysis and evaluation of various properties of the designed fusion construct. Computational results showed that our engineered structure has the potential for proper stimulation of cellular and humoral immune responses against VL. Consequently, it could be proposed as a candidate vaccine against VL according to these data and after verifying the efficacy of the candidate vaccine through in vivo and in vitro immunological tests.

     

Separation of bacteria smaller than 4 µm from other blood components using insulator-based dielectrophoresis: numerical simulation approach

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - Bloodstream infection (BSI) is a life-threatening infection that causes more than 80,000 deaths and more than 500,000 infections annually in North...     

Relationships between environmental variables and vegetation across mountain wetland sites,N. Iran

The mountain wetlands studied represent a unique habitat on the southern slopes of the Alborz mountain range, the second largest range in Iran. In comparison with other parts of this range the western section is ecologically and botanically unknown. Floristic and vegetation variation were assessed using diverse environmental variables along a broad altitudinal span (350 m to 3200 m a.s.l.). Using both statistical and ordination analyses floristic variation was assessed on three defined altitudinal belts which were delimited based on Alborz macro-climatic boundaries. The distribution of individual wetland plant species, of phytogeographic elements and of life-forms all differ among altitudinal belts. This result is also shown in both direct and indirect analyses of ordinations. The proportion of geophytes significantly increases with altitude and geophytes are very well represented in the upper altitudinal belt. The number of species of a narrow phytogeographical distribution (e.g. endemics) increases with altitude, soil pH and EC declined with altitude. The first axis of DCA ordination with passively projected environmental variables indicates that, organic matter and concentration of Fe²⁺ are increased toward higher altitude. The second axis of ordination is related to both soil texture and slope inclination. The distribution of species in the CCA species plot is also close to the distribution of those in the DCA ordination. This study indicates that altitude and slope together with other dependent environmental variables (pH, EC, Ca²⁺ and soil texture) are the main ecological factors controlling species distribution across the Western Alborz wetland sites.     

Maternal Urinary Iodine Concentration and Pregnancy Outcomes: Tehran Thyroid and Pregnancy Study

Biological Trace Element Research - Long-term use of hair dyes has potential effects on metal content in hair. However, little research dissects the specific distribution and composition variations...     

Rheumatoid factor,not antibodies against citrullinated proteins,is associated with baseline disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis clinical trials

IntroductionAlthough the prognostic value of rheumatoid factor (RF) and autoantibodies against citrullinated proteins (ACPAs) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is well established, their association with RA disease activity remains unclear. Here, we investigate this association in a large study using data from clinical trials.MethodsWe used baseline data from four recent randomized controlled clinical trials of RA. We investigated individual and composite measures of disease activity. The relationship of RF and ACPAs with these measures was investigated by using stratified analysis (comparing four groups of patients according to the presence or absence of RF and ACPAs) and matched analysis (disease activity levels compared between patients negative and patients highly positive for one autoantibody who were matched for levels of the other autoantibody as well as for age, gender, and duration of RA).ResultsA total of 2118 patients were analysed in the different cohorts. In the stratified analysis, RF⁺ patients, regardless of ACPA status, had the highest levels of disease activity, whereas ACPA⁺ patients had disease activity that was similar to or lower than that of ACPA⁻ patients, both in the presence and in the absence of RF. When matched for ACPA levels, patients with highly positive RF had significantly higher disease activity for all composite indices compared with patients who were RF⁻ (P = 0.0067), whereas ACPA-highly-positive and ACPA-negative patients matched for RF levels had similar disease activity, again even with the tendency toward lower disease activity for ACPA⁺ patients (P = 0.054).ConclusionThe data presented suggest that the presence of RF has a clear association with higher levels of disease activity but that the presence of ACPAs has not and even appears to be associated with lower disease activity.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13075-015-0736-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.