INTRODUCTION The anti-angiogenic monoclonal antibody, bevacizumab, is currently used by intravitreal administration as off-label drug to treat age-related macular degeneration or other ophthalmologic diseases. For this purpose, commercial bevacizumab is repackaged in 1mL polypropylene syringes under sterile conditions. However, no complete study on the stability of this hospital-based preparati...

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) developed by Notomi et al. (2000) has made it possible to amplify DNA with high specificity, efficiency and rapidity under isothermal conditions. The ultimate products of LAMP are stem-loop structures with several inverted repeats of the target sequence and cauliflower-like patterns with multiple loops shaped by annealing between every other inverte...

Novel thermo-responsive ABA-type triblock copolymers (poly(NAAMen-b-NAGMe240-b-NAAMen), n = 18-72) composed of naturally occurring amino acid-based vinyl polymer blocks such as poly(N-acryloyl-l-alanine methyl ester (poly(NAAMe)) as the A segment and poly(N-acryloyl-glycine methylester)(poly(NAGMe)) as the B segment have been synthesized by the atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). Their...

The interaction between pyrene-labeled poly(acrylamido)-2-methylpropane sulfonate) (PyPAMPS) and mixed micelles of n-dodecylhexaoxyethylene glycol monoether/n-hexadecyltrimethylammonium chloride (C12E6/CTAC) was studied by turbidimetry, quasielastic light scattering (QELS), fluorescence quenching, and UV spectroscopy. The present report focuses on the effect of the pyrene label on the polymer-m...

Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (S. suis 2) is an important zoonotic pathogen that causes considerable economic losses to the pig industry and significantly threatens public health worldwide. The highly pathogenic S. suis 2, which contains the 89K pathogenicity island (PAI), has caused large-scale outbreaks of infections in humans, resulting in high mortality rates. In this study, we established ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Fibrin clot formation is important in acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). We investigated plasma fibrin clot characteristics in acute ICH compared with acute ischemic stroke (IS) and nonstroke conditions. METHODS In the 3 studied groups, we analyzed plasma fibrin clot phenotype and its association with clinical stroke presentation. RESULTS Compared with controls, in...

Sorting and quantification of deactivated bacteria is an important way of quality control for whole-cell bacterial vaccines. In general, surface features of deactivated bacteria used for whole-cell bacterial vaccines affect the immunoresponse to bacteria-associated antigens. Enumeration of bacteria is also an important process development parameter for these vaccines. Field-flow fractionation (...

OBJECTIVES High prevalence rates of celiac disease in patients with Down syndrome have been reported in several countries. However, in Brazil there is no data regarding this association. In this study we report the prevalence of celiac disease in Down syndrome children and adolescents from southern Brazil. METHODS Seventy-one patients (32 female and 39 male, 2-18 years) from Curitiba, Brazil,...

Dynamic light scattering and turbidimetry, carried out on solutions of hyaluronic acid (HA) and bovine or human serum albumin (SA) at fixed ionic strength (I), revealed a critical pH corresponding to the onset of HA-SA soluble complex formation. Subsequent reduction of pH below pH(c), corresponding to an increase in protein net positive charge, results in phase separation of the complex. The se...

BACKGROUND We examine the clinical significance and biomarkers of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA)-catalyzed clot lysis time (CLT) in patients with intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism (PE). METHODS Platelet-poor, citrated plasma was obtained from patients with PE. Healthy age- and sex-matched patients served as disease-negative controls. Fibrinogen, α2-antiplasmin, plasminogen, thrombin ac...