Publications by authors named "Ali Akbar Pourfathollah"

Article Synopsis
  • - The study evaluated the immune response to COVID-19 in 30 patients, comparing those receiving convalescent plasma to a control group receiving normal plasma, using various measurement methods over several days post-infusion.
  • - Results indicated that convalescent plasma infusion resulted in lower levels of certain immune receptors (TLR7/8, PD-1, and CTLA-4) and increased levels of adaptive immune transcription factors (Tbet, RORγ3, Foxp3) compared to the control group.
  • - Additionally, the infusion led to a significant decrease in viral load and specific cytokines, suggesting that convalescent plasma can effectively modulate the immune response, warranting further investigation for confirmation.
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This study's purpose was to optimize the leukocyte extraction protocol and evaluate the efficacy of this new protocol. 12BioR blood filters were collected from Tehran Blood Transfusion Center. A twosyringe system and Multi-step rinsing were designed for cell extraction.

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A countrywide study over the eras indicates overuse of blood transfusion can have considerable risks to patients accompanied by significant costs of blood transfusion for patients, hospitals, and health-care systems. Besides, more than 30% of the world's population is anemic. Typically, blood transfusion helps continue suitable oxygen transfer in anemia, i.

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Diabetes is a highly common metabolic disorder in advanced societies. One of the causes of diabetes is insulin resistance, which is associated with a loss of sensitivity to insulin-sensitive cells. Insulin resistance develops in the body of a person prone to diabetes many years before diabetes development.

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Background And Objectives: Despite the increased sensitivity of screening tests, the HBV can be transmitted during the window period and occult hepatitis B infection. The purpose of this study was to evaluate HBV markers and prevalence of OBI among HBsAg negative blood donors in Golestan province.

Materials And Methods: Anti-HBc (IgM and IgG), anti-HBs and anti-HBe tests on 4313 serum samples (HBsAg negative) were performed by ELISA method.

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Background: Acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) is one of the leading causes of limitation and mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). Numerous studies have shown that changes in the gut microbiome diversity increased post-transplant problems, including the occurrence of aGVHD. Probiotics and prebiotics can reconstitute the gut microbiota and thus increase bacterial metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that have immunomodulatory effects preventing aGVHD in recipients of allo-HSCTs.

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Background: An issue that hinders researchers' access to Natural Killer (NK) cells is their low proportion in peripheral blood leukocytes. This issue is currently addressed by methods involving a series of differentiation and expansions that are time-consuming and expensive.

Objective: We have investigated whether the used leukocyte reduction filters, a by-product in the blood transfusion practice that currently is considered waste, can be utilized as a source of the NK cells.

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Blood donor age has become a major concern due to the age-associated variations in the content and concentration of circulating extracellular nano-sized vesicles (EVs), including exosomes. These EVs mirror the state of their parental cells and transfer it to the recipient cells via biological messengers such as microRNAs (miRNAs, miRs). Since the behavior of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is potentially affected by the miRs of plasma-derived EVs, a better understanding of the content of EVs is important for the safety and efficacy perspectives in blood transfusion medicine.

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Background & Objective: Trapped cell population in leukoreduction filters (LRFs) contains such a significant number of CD34 hematopoietic stem cells that can be recovered to be used in research studies.

Methods: Samples (n=20) were obtained from 10 first-time donors and 10 regular blood donors with more than 30 times blood donation. After separating leukocytes from LRFs by backflushing, total leukocyte number and differential count were determined in both groups using an automated haemocytometer.

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Background: The main cause of hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN) is the incompatibility of the RHD antigen between mother and fetus. Following the discovery of cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA), noninvasive fetal RHD genotyping also became possible, which will help in the better management of immunized RHD negative mothers and in the targeted prenatal injection of Rho(D) immune globulin (RhIG). The objective of this study was to establish a reliable method with high accuracy to determine the fetal RHD genotype.

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Summary: Many packages serve as an interface between R language and the Application Programming Interface (API) of databases and web services. There is usually a 'one-package to one-service' correspondence, which poses challenges such as consistency to the users and scalability to the developers. This, among other issues, has motivated us to develop a package as a framework to facilitate the implementation of API resources in the R language.

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The microRNA-122 (miR-122) is a liver-specific microRNA that can be used as a potential molecular marker for predicting liver injury. There is a positive correlation between miR-122 level in serum and hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication in patients infected with this virus. The present study was conducted to study the clinical importance and expression of miR-122 in asymptomatic and symptomatic patients with HBV infection in comparison to the healthy group.

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Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is the most prevalent form of symptomatic primary humoral immunodeficiencies characterized by failure in the final differentiation of B lymphocytes. The majority of CVID cases have no identified genetic defect, and epigenetic alteration could be involved in the pathogenesis of CVID. Hence, we aimed to evaluate the expression of hsa-miR-125b-5p -and, B lymphocyte-induced maturation protein-1(BLIMP-1) and interferon regulatory protein-4 (IRF-4) in a group of CVID patients with no definitive genetic diagnosis in comparison with healthy individuals.

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The purpose of this study was designing and synthesizing a PLGA formulation targeted with anti-CD40 monoclonal antibody, which has suitable physicochemical properties as a dimethyl fumarate (DMF) drug delivery system having minimal cytotoxicity. Therefore, this research was performed to determine the effect of anti-CD40mAb-DMF-NPs on the expression of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α cytokine genes in mouse splenocytes. The toxicity of different groups, namely free PLGA, free DMF, DMF-containing PLGA, anti-CD40mAb-DMF-NPs, was evaluated by MTT assay.

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of using a thromboelastometry-based protocol on transfusion requirements in patients undergoing combined coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and valve surgery. 80 adult patients scheduled for elective combined CABG and valve surgery were included in this clinical trial study. Patients were randomly allocated to the thromboelastometry (ROTEM) ( = 40) or control groups ( = 40).

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Conditioned medium (CM) derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) contains bioactive molecules including microRNAs (miRs) that could be a potential tool for controlling cancer cells' behavior. Due to the properties of CM, this study assesses the effects of miR-34a related MSC-CM on tumor behavior through the evaluation of migration, invasion, apoptosis, and PDL1 expression in breast cancer cell lines. The miR-34a overexpression vector or scramble control was produced using lentiviral vectors, DNA cloning, and the transfection of the HEK-293T cell line.

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Background: There are some antibodies which are present in healthy individuals without any former exposure to foreign antigens; they are known as natural autoantibodies (NAAbs). In recent years, it was shown that they probably contribute to the homeostasis of the whole body and might be present before beginning of some diseases. Thus, as new biomarkers, they are promising factors to diagnose diseases.

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Background: Noninvasive fetal sex determination by analyzing Y chromosome-specific sequences is very useful in the management of cases related to sex-linked genetic diseases. The aim of this study was to establish a non-invasive fetal sex determination test using Real-Time PCR and specific probes.

Methods: The study was a prospective observational cohort study conducted from August 2018 to September 2019.

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The human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) can cause ATL or TSP. This study evaluates the prevalence of HTLV-1 infection in blood donors in Golestan province. The study was conducted among 4226 blood donors and ELISA test was performed for the initial HTLV-1 screening.

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Introduction: The isolation of captured peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNCs) from leukoreduction filters (LRFs) can be of great importance in terms of bringing the lost cells back into use.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate various methods based on their potential to recover the peripheral blood cells from LRFs with a focus on mononuclear cells (MNCs).

Method: For cell isolation from LRFs, three distinct methods (back-flushing, direct and vacuum pump) were compared through the calculation of the yield of isolated MNCs.

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Introduction: Peripheral blood leukocytes are a suitable cell model for science research. However, blood samples from healthy volunteers are limited in volume and difficult to obtain due to the complexity of volunteer recruitment.

Objective: Therefore, it is urgent to find an alternative source of peripheral blood leukocytes.

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Mobile health or MHealth refers to the use of mobile phone in healthcare services to enhance the health level of people. Before using MHealth, it is necessary to study the effective factors in physicians' adoption and acceptance of technology in the field of thalassemia. This cross sectional study was conducted using the survey and correlation methods.

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In the lack of an effective vaccine and antiviral treatment, convalescent plasma (CP) has been a promising therapeutic approach in past pandemics. Accumulating evidence in the current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic corroborates the safety of CP therapy and preliminary data underline the potential efficacy. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted CP therapy for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients under the emergency use authorization, albeit additional clinical studies are still needed.

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