Co-delivery of beta-caryophyllene and indomethacin in the oily core of nanoemulsions potentiates the anti-inflammatory effect in LPS-stimulated macrophage model.

The potentiation of pharmacological effects can be achieved through several strategies, such as the association of substances and delivery in nanostructured systems. In practice, potentiation can be measured by the law of mass action and joint evaluation of the combination index (CI) and dose-response curves. In this context, this study aimed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory effect of the association of β-caryophyllene and indomethacin in the free form and delivered in nanoemulsions using the in vitro model of LPS-stimulated murine macrophage.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in German secondary schools from October 2020 to July 2021: a longitudinal study.

Purpose: To quantify the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections in students and teachers in 14 Secondary schools in eastern Saxony, Germany. Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in study population. Number of undetected cases.

SARS-CoV-2 transmissions in students and teachers: seroprevalence follow-up study in a German secondary school in November and December 2020.

Objective: To quantify the number of undetected SARS-CoV-2 infections in educational settings.

Design: Serial SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study before and during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Setting: Secondary school in Dresden, Germany.

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in students and teachers: a longitudinal study from May to October 2020 in German secondary schools.

Objective: To quantify the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections in secondary schools after their reopening in May 2020.

Design: Repeated SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study after the reopening of schools and 4 months later.

Setting: Secondary school in Dresden, Germany.

Sedative, hematologic and hemostatic effects of dexmedetomidine-butorphanol alone or in combination with ketamine in cats.

Acute stress induced by physical restraint can interfere with the validity of laboratory findings. Sedation could minimize such stress. However, it is not known whether sedation can affect hematologic and hemostatic parameters in cats.

The role of glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase and glutamate dehydrogenase in nitrogen metabolism in Mycobacterium bovis BCG.

Recent evidence suggests that the regulation of intracellular glutamate levels could play an important role in the ability of pathogenic slow-growing mycobacteria to grow in vivo. However, little is known about the in vitro requirement for the enzymes which catalyse glutamate production and degradation in the slow-growing mycobacteria, namely; glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase (GOGAT) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), respectively. We report that allelic replacement of the Mycobacterium bovis BCG gltBD-operon encoding for the large (gltB) and small (gltD) subunits of GOGAT with a hygromycin resistance cassette resulted in glutamate auxotrophy and that deletion of the GDH encoding-gene (gdh) led to a marked growth deficiency in the presence of L-glutamate as a sole nitrogen source as well as reduction in growth when cultured in an excess of L-asparagine.

Severity of injury and the decision to arrest in cases of intimate partner violence.

From a victim's physical health perspective, at the centre of any case of intimate partner violence (IPV) is the degree of trauma imparted on that victim by the offender. Yet, the implementations of state-level 'Mandatory Arrest' and 'Preferred Arrest' laws encourage arrests decisions in cases of IPV typically without regard to the level of trauma severity found in each case. And, despite these well-meaning implementations and the gravity of their consequences, the importance of evaluating trauma severity in victims of IPV remains largely overlooked.

The outcome of ELBW infants treated with NCPAP and InSurE in a resource-limited institution.

Background And Objective: Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) plus intubation, surfactant, and extubation (InSurE) with the option of back-up ventilation for those infants for whom noninvasive ventilatory support failed resulted in a significant increase in survival in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants. The authors sought to determine the outcome of ELBW infants treated with NCPAP and InSurE in a neonatal high care ward with limited back-up ventilation.

Methods: Three hundred eighteen inborn infants with birth weight 500-1000 g and gestational age ≥25 weeks who were admitted to the neonatal high care ward were included in this observational study.

Schistosoma japonicum reveals distinct reactivity with antisera directed to proteases mediating host infection and invasion by cercariae of S. mansoni or S. haematobium.

Serine proteases released from the acetabular glands of cercariae, also known as cercarial elastases, are key enzymes in the penetration process of schistosomes through the skin of the final host. Antisera against these enzymes secreted from Schistosoma mansoni or S. haematobium reveal differences in the patterns of elastase expression among schistosome species and among different developmental stages of the larvae.

Serodiagnosis of Schistosoma mansoni infections in an endemic area of Burkina Faso: performance of several immunological tests with different parasite antigens.

The performance of indirect haemagglutination assays (IHA), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and indirect immunofluorescent antibody tests (IFAT) were compared with 450 sera from a Schistosoma mansoni-endemic area in Burkina Faso. All participants in this survey provided at least one sample each of stool, urine and serum. From those with an egg-negative Kato-Katz thick smear, a second stool sample was examined.

Infection induces antibodies against the cercarial secretions, but not against the cercarial elastases of Schistosoma mansoni, Schistosoma haematobium, Schistosoma japonicum and Trichobilharzia ocellata.

Cercarial secretions from different species of the parasite Schistosoma and from Trichobilharzia ocellata contain a proteolytic activity, cercarial elastase, which was demonstrated by a 30 kDa band in gelatin gels. Sera of patients infected with Schistosoma mansoni, Schistosoma haematobium or Schistosoma japonicum contain immunoglobulin G which react in ELISA with cercarial secretions from all schistosomes and cross-react among the different parasite species. In Western blots, however, infection sera from patients, as well as heavily infected mice or rabbits, did not react with a 30-kDa protein.

A 41-kDa antigen of the rodent filaria Acanthocheilonema viteae with homologies to tropomyosin induces host-protective immune responses.

A purified 41-kDa protein of the rodent filaria Acanthocheilonema viteae was shown to protect jirds against a challenge infection. Subcutaneous immunization with the protein reduced the number of adult worms by up to 65% and the number of circulating microfilariae declined by up to 93% in these animals. The protein is located in the muscle tissues of adult worms and was identified as tropomyosin by N-terminal sequencing of the purified protein.

Introduction of a donor exposure reduction programme for multiple-transfused very-low-birth-weight infants.

Objective: To conduct an audit of the frequency of red cell concentrate transfusions (RCCTs) in infants of different weight categories, the donor exposure rate (DER), in these transfused infants and the volume of blood wasted during each transfusion, and to identify from this baseline information specific categories of infants who would benefit from the introduction of a limited donor exposure programme (LDEP).

Study Setting: Neonatal wards and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), Tygerberg Hospital, Western Cape.

Study Design: A prospective descriptive study and comparison with a historic control group.

Redox processes in malaria and other parasitic diseases. Determination of intracellular glutathione.

The role of oxidative stress resulting from production of reactive oxygen species and/or from suppression of the cellular antioxidant capacity in parasitic infections is shortly reviewed. The experimental part of the paper deals with the glutathione (GSH)--glutathione reductase (GR) system, a cornerstone of intracellular antioxidant defence mechanisms. For studying this system in parasitic diseases such as malaria new or modified methods are required.

Acanthocheilonema viteae: vaccination of jirds with irradiation-attenuated stage-3 larvae and with exported larval antigens.

Jirds (Meriones unguiculatus) were immunized with irradiated (35 krad) stage-3 larvae (L3) of Acanthocheilonema viteae. The induced resistance against homologous challenge infection and the antibody response of the animals were studied. Immunization with 3, 2, or 1 dose of 50 irradiated L3 induced approximately 90% resistance.

Specificity of routine parasite serological tests in autoimmune disorders, neoplastic disease, EBV-induced mononucleosis, and HIV infection.

Sera from 120 patients with rheumatological disorders, neoplastic disease, infectious mononucleosis, and HIV infection, and from 30 healthy blood donors were tested for nonspecific reactivity in 13 routinely used parasite serological tests. Responses were detected in 3/30 healthy blood donors (10%) vs 25/120 patients (21%). Of 40 responses in these 28 responders most were weakly reactive, and 25 out of 40 responses were only at borderline level.

A study on antigen recognition by onchocerciasis patients with different clinical forms of disease.

Sera from 40 onchocerciasis patients from the Yemen Arab Republic with either mild localized forms of onchocerciasis, intermediate or severe localized forms of the disease or generalized forms of infection were studied with respect to their IgG and IgM response against Onchocerca volvulus antigens. Immunoblotting, performed with SDS-PAGE-separated proteins of female O. volvulus and quantified by densitometric scanning, revealed IgG and IgM antibodies against worm components in sera of all patients.

[Comparative immunofluorescent-histological investigations on 7 nematode species in respect to its antigenic properties for differential diagnosis of nematode infections (author's transl)].

Five nematode species of the Onchocercidae family and one from the Strongylidae and Trichuridae family were tested as antigen in the immunofluorescence test (IIFT) against reference sera from six nematode infections. The localisation of the cytosomal antigen antibody-reaction in the IIFT which was described on D. Viteae, was found to be the same for B.

[Serological cross-reactions between Echinococcus multilocularis and Dipetalonema viteae infected rodents (author's transl)].

Sera from 30 E. multilocularis infected NMRI-mice and 30 D. viteae infected golden hamsters were tested in the indirect fluorescent antibody (IFAT) and indirect hemagglutination (IHA) tests.

Antigenic activity in adult Dipetalonema viteae in the indirect immunofluorescent test against sera from filariasis patients--the immunofluorescent histological search for "pure" antigen.

Using IFAT, it has been shown that isolated egg-shells and uterine fluid of Dipetalonema viteae are the most potent antigens in heterologous systems using human sera from patients infected with Wuchereria bancrofti, Onchocerca volvulus and Loa loa, as well as in homologous systems using sera from animals infected with D. viteae. It is suggested that these antigens are unlikely to be highly species-specific, and that anatomical isolation of antigens is a necessary prerequisite to immunochemical analysis aimed at the preparation of a "pure" antigen.

[The indirect immunofluorescent antibody test with paraffin-embedded histological sections as antigen in experimental echinococcosis (author's transl)].

A modification of the indirect immunofluorescent antibody test for the diagnosis of infections with metacestodes of Echinococcus multilocularis is described. Formol alcohol was used as fixative mixture for the antigen materials; as embeding medium served paraffin. In positive reactions the peripheral protoscolex-layers showed a bright yellow-green fluorescence.

[Antigenic activities of eggs, egg membranes, metabolic products and hatched larvae from the uterus of dipetalonema viteae (author's transl)].

Eggs of different stages of development, egg membranes, and the fluid isolated from uterus and pseudocoelomic cavity show antigenic properties against sera from Wuchereriasis- and Onchocerciasis-patients in the indirect immunofluorescent test, while hatched larvae did not show any fluorescence. Isolation and simple drying of these antigenic materials on microscopic slides when compared with histologically prepared antigenic material (Methacrylate or cryostate-sections) proved to have quantitatively and qualitatively equal antigenic properties in the immunofluorescent test with considerable technical, time and money saving advantages. These observations indicate further that the elements of the female reproductive system are group specific antigens responsible for the immune response in the host.