The Impact of Air Pollution on Asthma Severity among Residents Living near the Main Industrial Complex in Oman: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Asthma is a widespread chronic respiratory disease that poses a significant public health challenge. The current study investigated the associations between air pollution and asthma severity among individuals residing near the Sohar industrial port (SIP) in Oman. Despite the presence of multiple major industrial complexes in Oman, limited knowledge regarding their impact on respiratory health is accredited.

"In House" assays for the quantification of Annexin V and its autoantibodies in patients with recurrent pregnancy loss and in vitro fertilisation failures.

Several studies have been shown that Annexin V (ANXV) autoantibodies concentrations are associated with both early recurrent pregnancy losses (RPLs) or in vitro fertilization failure (IVFf). We investigated the association between ANXV autoantibodies and ANVX levels in RPL, IVFf and normal group women. The study was conducted on 22 female patients with RPLs, 66 patients with IVFf, and 16 normal samples from women who had given birth.

Characterization of rabbit polyclonal antibody against camel recombinant nanobodies.

Nanobodies (Nbs) are recombinant single-domain fragments derived from camelids' heavy-chain antibodies (HCAbs). Nanobodies are increasingly used in numerous biotechnological and medical applications because of their high stability, solubility, and yield. However, one major obstacle prohibiting Nb expansion is the affordability of specific detector antibodies for their final revelation.

Investigation of role of CpG methylation in some epithelial mesenchymal transition gene in a chemoresistant ovarian cancer cell line.

Ovarian cancer is one of the lethal gynecologic cancers. Chemoresistance is an essential reason for treatment failure and high mortality. Emerging evidence connects epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) like changes and acquisition of chemoresistance in cancers.

Secretion of Recombinant Human Annexin V in Fusion with the Super Folder GFP for Labelling Phosphatidylserine-Exposing Membranes.

Annexin V (ANXV), mostly characterized by its ability to interact with biological membranes in a calcium-dependent manner. ANXV interacts mainly with phosphatidylserine (PS), for that fluorescent ANXV widely produced and used as a sensitive and specific probe to mark apoptotic cells or any PS-containing bilayers membranes. Many reports described the prokaryotic expression of recombinant human ANXV.

Camel nanobodies: Promising molecular tools against leishmaniasis.

Aim: To characterize several anti-Leishmania tropica nanobodies and to investigate their effect on Leishmania infection.

Methods: Several immunological tests were implied to characterize five different (as confirmed by sequencing) anti-L tropica nanobodies (NbLt05, NbLt06, NbLt14, NbLt24 and NbLt36) against parasite lysates or intact cells from different stages, promastigotes and amastigotes. Direct inhibitory effect of these nanobodies on parasite infection cycle on macrophages was tested in cell culture.

Exploiting Nanobodies in the Detection and Quantification of Human Growth Hormone Phage-Sandwich Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay.

Background: Monitoring blood levels of human growth hormone (hGH) in most children with short stature deficiencies is crucial for taking a decision of treatment with extended course of daily and expensive doses of recombinant hGH (rhGH or Somatropin). Besides, misusing of rhGH by sportsmen is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and thus sensitive GH-detecting methods are highly welcome in this field. Nanobodies are the tiniest antigen-binding entity derived from camel heavy chain antibodies.

Characterization of Annexin V Fusion with the Superfolder GFP in Liposomes Binding and Apoptosis Detection.

Programed cell death is a critical and unavoidable part of life. One of the most widely used markers for dying cells, by apoptosis or pyroptosis, is the redistribution of phosphatidylserine (PS) from the inner to the outer plasma membrane leaflet. Annexin V protein is a sensitive and specific probe to mark this event because of its high affinity to the exposed PS.

Immuno-detection of dioxins using a recombinant protein of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) fused with sfGFP.

Background: Dioxins are one of the most toxic groups of persistent organic pollutants. Their bioaccumulation through the food chain constitutes a potential risk for human health. Upon cell entry, dioxins bind specifically and firmly to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), leading to the stimulation of several enzymes responsible for its detoxification.

Sequencing and Gene Expression Analysis of Leishmania tropica LACK Gene.

Background: Leishmania Homologue of receptors for Activated C Kinase (LACK) antigen is a 36-kDa protein, which provokes a very early immune response against Leishmania infection. There are several reports on the expression of LACK through different life-cycle stages of genus Leishmania, but only a few of them have focused on L.tropica.

Camelid nanobodies with high affinity for broad bean mottle virus: a possible promising tool to immunomodulate plant resistance against viruses.

Worldwide, plant viral infections decrease seriously the crop production yield, boosting the demand to develop new strategies to control viral diseases. One of these strategies to prevent viral infections, based on the immunomodulation faces many problems related to the ectopic expression of specific antibodies in planta. Camelid nanobodies, expressed in plants, may offer a solution as they are an attractive tool to bind efficiently to viral epitopes, cryptic or not accessible to conventional antibodies.

Characterization of camel nanobodies specific for superfolder GFP fusion proteins.

Superfolder green fluorescent protein (sfGFP) is a fusion tag which plays a dual role in monitoring and purifying the recombinant fusion proteins using specific binders. Nanobodies are the smallest intact antigen binding fragments derived from heavy chain-only antibodies (HCAbs) occurring in camelids. They are produced as recombinant proteins in E.

Generation and characterization of nanobodies against rhGH expressed as sfGFP fusion protein.

Growth hormone (GH) deficiencies are diagnosed in most children with short stature and treated with a long course of administrating expensive and daily doses of recombinant human GH (rhGH or Somatropin®). This work describes for the first time the production of several GH specific nanobodies with great potential in the field of GH production and detection. Nanobodies are the smallest intact antigen binders derived from heavy chain-only antibodies (HCAbs) of camelids.

Prokaryotic overexpression of TEV-rhGH and characterization of its polyclonal antibody.

Recombinant protein technology represents one of the best solutions to achieve rapid, efficient, and cost-effective protein expression and purification of therapeutic proteins. Growth hormone (GH) is an excellent example of these proteins used in the therapy of hormone deficiencies. In this work, a plasmid, pRSET-TEV-rhGH, has been constructed to overexpress recombinant human GH (rhGH) by cloning its gene downstream of an N-terminal 6 × His-tagged polypeptide (43 aa) in the T7 promoter-plasmid pRSET.

Evaluation of the immunogenicity and the protective efficacy in mice of a DNA vaccine encoding SP41 from Brucella melitensis.

Introduction: Brucella melitensis is a facultative intracellular Gram-negative bacterial pathogen that may enter the host via ingestion or inhalation, or through conjunctiva or skin abrasions. Some Brucella spp surface proteins (SPs) play an important role in bacterial adhesion and invasion and thus represent targets for the host immune system. Brucella spp surface protein with apparent molecular mass of 41 kDa interacts selectively with HeLa cells.

Immunodetection of the recombinant GroEL by the Nanobody NbBruc02.

Brucella has a great impact on health and economy in Syria, thus much effort is being placed on the development of diagnostics and vaccines. In this context, a wide Nanobody "immune" library was previously established, from which several Brucella-specific binders were isolated. One of these camel genetically engineered heavy-chain antibody fragments was referred to as NbBruc02.

The retinoblastoma gene and its product are targeted by ICBP90: a key mechanism in the G1/S transition during the cell cycle.

The retinoblastoma protein (pRB) is encoded by the RB1 gene whose promoter contains several putative binding sites for ICBP90 (Inverted CCAAT box Binding Protein of 90 kDa), a transcriptional regulator of the topoisomerase IIalpha gene. ICBP90 has two consensus binding sites for pRB in its primary sequence. Here, we show that pRB and ICBP90 co-immunoprecipitate in cell extracts of proliferating human lung fibroblasts and of proliferating or confluent Jurkat cells.

TCR pathway involves ICBP90 gene down-regulation via E2F binding sites.

Antigen-induced cell death is essential for function, growth and differentiation of T-lymphocytes through legation of the T cell receptor. Since TCR-induced cell death occurs at late G1 checkpoint of the cell cycle and considering that ICBP90 is critical for G1/S transition, we studied the ICBP90 regulation through the TCR pathway in Jurkat cells. ICBP90 expression was strongly decreased after TCR triggering concomitantly to cyclin D3 and topoisomerase IIalpha expression decreases.

Phosphorylation of ICBP90 by protein kinase A enhances topoisomerase IIalpha expression.

Inverted CCAAT box binding protein of 90kDa (ICBP90) is a nuclear protein involved in the topoisomerase IIalpha (TopoIIalpha) gene expression. It belongs to a family of E3 ligases of the RING finger type and its expression is deregulated in cancer cells. Previous studies have shown that high expression of ICBP90 may impair the control of G1/S transition of the cell cycle in various cancer cell lines.

ICBP90 expression is downregulated in apoptosis-induced Jurkat cells.

Inhibition of apoptosis, resulting from an increase in anti-apoptotic protein, plays a fundamental role in carcinogenesis. Because ICBP90 gene expression is deregulated in cancer cells, we studied its expression in Jurkat cells under apoptotic conditions to see whether ICBP90 is involved in the regulation of apoptosis. We found that ICBP90 expression and the percentage of living cells were dose-dependently decreased in PHA and ionophore A23187-stimulated Jurkat cells, but not in THP-1 cells.