results among the 181 anti-hcv ab negative patients, 13 (7.2%) were positive for hcv core ag and 11 (6%) had detectable hcv rna with a range of 40-336543 iu/ml by pcr. the two tests had a high measurement agreement (kappa=0.82, p<0.001). of the 13 patients with positive hcv core ag test results, 3 were negative for hcv rna. considering real time pcr for hcv rna as the gold standard for hcv infe...

background the picture that has emerged from studies investigating hiv infected people with gbv-c viremia is that they have lower plasma hiv viral loads in comparison with hiv-positive people who did not have the gbv-c viremia. objectives since gbv-c hiv coinfection has not been studied in iran, we have designed a survey to study the outcomes of gbv-c infection on hiv infected individuals. pati...

conclusions genotypes 1 and 4 demonstrated remarkable similarity in terms of genome sequences and proteins, but surprisingly, in terms of the preferred codons for gene expression, they showed the greatest difference. more studies are therefore needed to confirm the results and select the best approach for treatment of these genotypes based on their codon usage properties. results the six genoty...

conclusions the quite sensitive in-house taqman real time rt-pcr assay was able to detect and quantify all four main hcv genotypes prevailing around all geographical regions of iran. results the lower limit detection of this in-house hcv real-time rt-pcr was determined as 100 rna copies/ml. inter- and intra-assay coefficient of variation (cv) of this in-house hcv real-time rt-pcr ranged from 0....

Background: Scleroderma is a chronic systemic disorder that affects the connective tissues. It is characterized by several immune manifestations, inflammation, vascular damage, and fibrosis. Some of the viral infections with complex mechanisms are involved in the development and progression of many autoimmune diseases, such as scleroderma. The present study aimed to investigate the serological ...

Background: Detection of hepatitis C virus specific antibodies is the initial step in chronic HCV diagnosis.  HCV NS4B is among the most immunogenic HCV antigens and has been widely used in commercial Enzyme Immunoassays (EIA). Additionally, NS4B, a key protein in the virus replication, can be an alternative target for antiviral therapy. Objectives: Development of a new method for high-level ex...