c Holding Company for Biological products and Vaccines (VACSERA-Egypt). Background: Apolipoprotein B (ApoB) is the major protein component of chylomicrons, low-density lipoproteins (LDL), very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and intermediate-density lipoproteins (IDL) and is the ligand for the LDL receptor. ApoB plays an important role in the maintenance of cholesterol homeostasis and lipoprote...

*Corresponding author: Mailing address: Aomori Prefectural Institute of Public Health and Environment, 1-1-1 Higashi-Tsukurimichi, Aomori 030-8566, Japan. E-mail: [email protected]. lg.jp On July 3, 2007, a medical facility in Aomori Prefecture informed Mutsu Health Center of a case of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157 (EHEC O157) infection. The patient was a primary school child...

Estrogen receptor (ER) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that mediates estrogen actions in target tissues. Several common polymorphisms of the ER-alpha gene have been reported to be associated with alterations in receptor expression and function. We evaluated the hypothesis that genetic polymorphisms in the ER-alpha gene may be associated with breast cancer risk in a population-based c...

OBJECTIVES To identify the mechanism of in vivo development of carbapenem resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae. METHODS Seven sequential isolates of K. pneumoniae were obtained from twin infants with pneumonia. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by agar dilution method. Carbapenemases including KPC and MβL were initially screened using phenotypic methods, and carbapenemase-enco...

OBJECTIVE To study the association of the apolipoprotein B gene polymorphisms with essential hypertension in Northern Chinese Han population. METHODS XbaI and EcoRI polymorphisms of the apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) method in 503 unrelated hypertensive patients and 490 healthy controls recruit...

The outcome of in vitro fertilization (IVF) depends substantially on the effectiveness of controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) induced by administration of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). In COH, endogenously produced estrogens extend the action of FSH in stimulating folliculogenesis. We determined the associations between genetic variations in estrogen receptor ESR1 and ESR2 genes and...

The genes encoding the production of acidocin B, a bacteriocin produced by Lactobacillus acidophilus strain M46 which is active against Listeria monocytogenes, Clostridium sporogenes, Brochothrix thermosphacta, Lactobacillus fermentum and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, but inactive against most other Lactobacillus species, were previously localized on a 4 kb XbaI-HindIII fragment ...

In this study, we used plasmid profile analysis, XbaI macrorestriction with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and PCR of the ipaH gene, to study the molecular characteristics of 183 Shigella spp. isolated during May 2000 to April 2003 from rectal swabs of patients with watery and/or bloody diarrhoea in a new industrialized area of Thailand. Among the 183 isolates, 167 were S. sonnei and ...