background: development of an effective vaccine is highly needed in order to restrict the aids pandemic. dna vaccines initiate both arms of immunity without the potential of causing disease. hiv-1 p24 and gp41 (gag and env) proteins play important roles in viral pathogenesis and are effective candidates for immune induction and vaccine design. objective: in this study, new dna vaccine candidate...

the first zagreb index, $m_1(g)$, and second zagreb index, $m_2(g)$, of the graph $g$ is defined as $m_{1}(g)=sum_{vin v(g)}d^{2}(v)$ and $m_{2}(g)=sum_{e=uvin e(g)}d(u)d(v),$ where $d(u)$ denotes the degree of vertex $u$. in this paper, the firstand second maximum values of the first and second zagreb indicesin the class of all $n-$vertex tetracyclic graphs are presented.

A C-to-T polymorphism in exon 2 of the cathepsin D gene encoding cathepsin D (CTSD) has been implicated as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. The authors performed a meta-analysis of 14 studies (16 comparisons) with CTSD genotyping (3,174 Alzheimer's disease cases and 3,298 controls). Overall, the random effects odds ratio for the T versus the C allele was 1.17 (95% confidence interval (CI)...

background: human t-lymphotropic virus (htlv), a retrovirus, is the causative agent of adult t-lymphocytic leukemia (atl) and tropical spastic paraparesia (tsp). htlv-1 is transmitted mainly through blood transfusion. sabzevar is an endemic region for htlv infection; hence it is essential to detect the prevalence of htlv1/2 infection in the blood donors of this city. materials and methods: in t...

The recombinase activating genes RAG-1 and RAG-2 operate together to activate V(D)J recombination, and thus play an essential role in the generation of immune system diversity. As a first step in understanding the function of the RAG-2 protein, we have tested a series of deletion and insertion mutations for their ability to induce V(D)J joining of a variety of model substrates. Mutants were ass...

Chickens create their immunoglobulin (Ig) repertoires during B cell development in the bursa of Fabricius by intrachromosomal gene conversion. Recent evidence has suggested that Ig gene conversion may involve cis-acting DNA elements related to those involved in V(D)J recombination. Therefore, we have examined the potential role of the V(D)J recombination activating genes, RAG-1 and RAG-2, in re...

V(D)J recombination occurs at recombination signal sequences (RSSs) containing conserved heptamer and nonamer elements. RAG-1 and RAG-2 initiate recombination by cleaving DNA between heptamers and antigen receptor coding segments. RAG-1 alone contacts the nonamer but interacts weakly, if at all, with the heptamer. RAG-2 by itself has no DNA-binding activity but promotes heptamer occupancy in th...