Emerging evidence suggests that in addition to being the 'power houses' of our cells, mitochondria facilitate effector responses of the immune system. Cell death and injury result in the release of mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) that acts via TLR9 (Toll-like receptor 9), a pattern recognition receptor of the immune system which detects bacterial and viral DNA but not vertebrate DNA. The ability of m...

Day 9 mouse embryos were cultured in 50% fetal calf serum and 50% Waymouth's medium supplemented with various amounts of insulin. Unmodified medium contained approximately 25% of the normal adult mouse blood insulin. The addition of 0.1 to 1.0 microgram insulin/ml to Waymouth's medium was most beneficial to in vitro development. There was a statistically significant increase in protein synthesi...

BACKGROUND Over the past 2 years, noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), which uses massively parallel sequencing to align and count DNA fragments floating in the plasma of pregnant women, has become integrated into prenatal care. Professional societies currently recommend offering NIPT as an advanced screen to pregnant women at high risk for fetal aneuploidy, reserving invasive diagnostic proced...

Objective Maternal-fetal RhD antigen incompatibility causes approximately 50% of clinically significant alloimmunization cases. The routine use of prophylactic anti-D immunoglobulin has dramatically reduced hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn. Recently, fetal RHD genotyping in RhD negative pregnant women has been suggested for appropriate use of anti-D immunoglobulin antenatal prophylaxi...

During murine fetal development, hemato-poietic progenitors start to colonize the thymic anlage at day 11 of gestation via blood stream. The present study aims at identifying the earliest prethymic progenitors in circulation. Here, we show that the interleukin-7 receptor-positive (IL-7R+) cells in Lin- c-kit+ population are circulating exclusively between days 11 and 14 of fetal age. Clonal ana...

Fully automated immunoassay formats are available for quantification of urinary albumin in large numbers of samples. However, most of these methods are impractical or expensive. The criteria for point-of-care testing include affordable cost, a disposable device, and minimum main-tenance/technical expertise required to perform tests (15). The sample should be applied directly to the device, whic...

BACKGROUND Molecular analysis of plasma DNA during human pregnancy has led to the discovery that maternal plasma contains both fetal and maternal DNA. This valuable source of fetal DNA opens up new possibilities for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. APPROACH Published data from the last 3 years demonstrating the feasibility and utility of analyzing fetal DNA in maternal plasma are reviewed. C...

Breast cancer is the most common neoplasm in women worldwide. Tissue biopsy, currently gold standard to obtain tumor molecular information, invasive and might be affected by heterogeneity rendering it incapable portray complete dynamic picture absence of specific genetic changes during evolution disease. In contrast, liquid biopsy can provide unique opportunities for real-time monitoring diseas...

Background & Aims: Maternal infections with parvovirus B19 and cytomegalovirus (CMV) maybe associated with intrauterine fetal death. The aim of this study was to compare frequency of CMV & Parvovirus B19 Infections in intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) and normal pregnancy. Methods: In a case-control study in Afzalipour Hospital during 2006 placental biopsies were collected from 70 cases of IUFD a...