BACKGROUND Real-time PCR is increasingly being adopted for RNA quantification and genetic analysis. At present the most popular real-time PCR assay is based on the hybridisation of a dual-labelled probe to the PCR product, and the development of a signal by loss of fluorescence quenching as PCR degrades the probe. Though this so-called 'TaqMan' approach has proved easy to optimise in practice, ...

Age-associated decline of immune function is believed to be mainly due to alterations of immune cells. However, longitudinal changes of human immune cells with age have not yet been adequately addressed. To test the hypothesis that regeneration of lymphocytes and monocytes is robust throughout most of adult life until advanced age, we examined six leukapheresis donors (3 young and 3 middle-aged...

Patients with T-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases show immune system abnormalities that resemble the typical characteristics of autoimmune dysfunction described in the elderly. In addition, the incidence of autoimmune disease increases with advancing age. To evaluate whether patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and multiple sclerosis (MS) have premature immuno-senescence, we measured two ind...

Thymic function is critical for immune reconstitution after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). We evaluated recipient thymic function before HSCT by quantifying T-cell receptor excision circles (TRECs) in pretransplantation peripheral blood lymphocytes from 102 patients who received HSCs from an HLA-identical sibling for malignant (n = 87) or nonmalignant diseases (n = 15). Median ...

Primary immunodeficiency diseases (PID) are a heterogeneous group of disorders caused by inborn errors of immunity, with affected children presenting with severe, recurrent or unusual infections. Over 300 distinct genetic molecular abnormalities resulting in PID have been identified, and this number continues to rise. Newborn screening for PID has been established in many countries, with the ma...

abstract background: the aims of this study were to assay the activity of adenosine deaminase (ada) in estrogen receptor positive (mcf-7) and negative (mda-mb468) breast cancer cell lines. methods: mda-mb468 and mcf-7 breast cancer cell lines were cultured in complete medium, striped serum with and without 0.0 1~-lm diethylstilbestrol (des), complete medium in the presence and absence of 111m t...

host genetic factors play a central role in determining the clinical phenotype of human diseases. association between two polymorphic loci in human genome, human leukocyte antigen (hla) and killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (kirs), and genetically complex infectious disease, particularly those of viral etiology, have been historically elusive. hence, defining the influence of genetic di...

The effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 85 children infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) was compared retrospectively among Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) immunologic groups 1-3. The duration of HAART did not vary significantly among the immunologic groups (median, 39.07 months). The CD4 cell percentage increased in 39.1%, 58.3%, and ...

background: considering that cannabinoids protect neurons against neurodegeneration, in this study, the neuroprotective effect of win55,212-2 in paraoxon induced neurotoxicity in pc12 cells and the role of the n-methyl-d-aspartate (nmda) receptor were evaluated. materials and methods: in this study pc12 cells were maintained in dulbecco's modified eagle’s medium (dmem+f12) culture medium supple...