In the era of the Human Genome Project, quantitation of gene expression by tumor/host cells is of paramount importance to investigate gene patterns responsible for cancer development, progression and response/resistance to treatment. Quantitative real-time PCR (qrt-PCR) technology has recently reached a level of sensitivity, accuracy and practical ease that support its use as a routine bioinstr...

Recently, a cell-culture independent protocol for detection of enteroviruses from clinical specimen was recommended by the WHO for surveillance alongside the previously established protocols. Here, we investigated whether this new protocol will show the same enterovirus diversity landscape as the established cell-culture dependent protocols. Faecal samples were collected from sixty apparently h...

AIM We aimed to examine the distribution and activation of peripheral T cells in TTV positive (n = 32) and negative (n = 17) hemodialyzed patients. The control group (n = 20) consisted of healthy blood donors. METHOD TTV-DNA was detected by seminested PCR. CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, CD56, CD3/HLA-DR, CD3/CD69 and the Th1/Th2 ratio of T cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. Circulating IFN-gamma, I...

Successive oncogenic steps are necessary to generate cancer. In many B-cell lymphomas, chromosomal translocations are considered to be an early oncogenic hit. We investigated whether the lymphoma-associated t(14;18) involving the BCL2 oncogene can occur outside the context of malignancy. To this end, we extensively screened blood cells from healthy blood donors by a very sensitive seminested po...

BACKGROUND Combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), the standard of care for HIV-1 infection, is considered to be successful when plasma viremia remains below the detection limit of commercial assays. Yet, cART fails in a substantial proportion of patients after the apparent success. No laboratory markers are known that are predictive of cART outcome in initial responders during the period of...

A prenatal origin of translocations associated with pediatric leukemia has been demonstrated for MLL-AF41 in infant leukemia, TEL-AML12,3 in common acute lymphocytic leukemia (cALL), and AML1-ETO4 in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We investigated whether AML-associated translocations PML-RARA and CBFB-MYHII could arise before birth. PML-RARA arises from the t(15;17) translocation,5 characteristi...

Human antibody light chains belonging to subgroup II of germ line genes were amplified by a seminested PCR technique using B-lymphocytes taken from a human adult infected with influenza virus. Each gene of the human light chains was transferred into the Escherichia coli system. The recovered light chain was highly purified using a two-step purification system. Light chain 22F6 showed interestin...

In this study,we reported five cases of CD5 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma(DLBCL)which initially presented as bone marrow involvement without lymphadenopathy. The cases involved two males and three females,with an average age of 73.8 years. The patients had fever and showed general fatigue. Three of the five cases presented hepatosplenomegaly. Laboratory examination highlighted anemia, thrombocy...

To the Editor: Vaccinia virus (VACV) causes exanthematous disease (bovine vaccinia) in Brazil. Outbreaks of this disease in humans have been reported since the late 1990s and have spread throughout Brazil (1). Natural human infections with VACV occur by close contact with infected cattle during milking. Lesions can spread to secondary body sites (forearms, arms, and face). Thus, personto-person...