No abstract

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are a large molecular chaperone family classified by their molecular weights, including HSP27, HSP40, HSP60, HSP70, HSP90, and HSP110. HSPs are likely to have antiapoptotic properties and participate actively in various processes such as tumor cell proliferation, invasion, metastases, and death. In this review, we discuss comprehensively the functions of HSPs associated with the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) and metastasis and resistance to cancer therapy. Taken together, HSPs have numerous clinical applications as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis and potential therapeutic targets for CRC and its related metastases.

Multi-epitope vaccines might cause immunity against multiple antigenic targets. Four immunodominant epitopes of HIV-1 genome were used to construct a polytope vaccine, formulated by dendrimer. Two regimens of polytopes mixture with dendrimer were utilized to immunize BALB/c mice. Adjuvants were also used to boost immune responses. The conjugated polytope could arouse significant cellular immune responses (P < 0.05) and Th1 response showed higher intensity compared to Th2 (P < 0.05). Our study depicted that conjugated dendrimer with multi-epitopic rHIVtop4 would efficiently induce cell-mediated immune responses and might be considered as promising delivery system for vaccines formulation.

Background and Objectives: Torque Teno virus or transfusion-transmitted virus (TTV) is a non-enveloped virus with a single strand circular DNA genome that currently is classified in the Alphatorquevirus genus and the family of Anelloviridae. Unlike other DNA viruses, TTV has an extremely wide genomic diversity. This virus, based on previous studies, infects both healthy people, as well as those who have HCV and human papillomavirus (HPV). This study aimed to evaluate the coinfec- tion of torque teno virus (TTV) and HPV in cervical samples from Iranian women. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, the fresh cervical cytobrush specimens were collected from 150 women referred to Dena laboratory in Tehran. Viral DNA was extracted from samples. The HPV-DNA was detected and genotyped. Then, nested polymerase chain reaction (Nested PCR) was performed for TTV using specific primers. Results: Among 50 cervical specimens without HPV, 14 were TTV positive (28%); among 50 low-risk HPV cervical spec- imen, 23 were TTV positive (46%), and from 50 high-risk HPV cervical specimen, 48 were TTV positive (96%). There is a significantly higher prevalence of TTV virus in low-risk and high-risk papillomavirus-infected specimens than in healthy specimens (p 0.0001). Additionally, TTV is more prevalent in samples containing high-risk papillomaviruses than in samples with low-risk papillomaviruses (P = 0.048). Conclusion: The higher prevalence of TTV among people infected with papillomavirus than in non-infected people indi- cates that both viruses are transmitted by the same mechanism (sexual route). In addition, the prevalence of TTV in samples containing high-risk papillomavirus is significantly higher than that in samples containing low-risk papillomavirus. The presence of papillomaviruses, particularly high-risk types, may be associated with TTV proliferation, which requires further research in the future.

Background and Objectives: Hashimoto's thyroiditis is a chronic inflammation and an autoimmune disease of the thyroid gland that causes hypothyroidism. Genetic, internal, and environmental factors are the causes of this disease. Because human herpes viruses such as herpesvirus type 6 (HHV-6) are involved in some autoimmune disorders, they may also play a role in causing this disease. This study aimed to evaluate the association between human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Materials and Methods: In the present study, 64 samples of thyroid paraffin tissue including 32 samples of thyroid paraffin tissue of healthy individuals as control, and 32 samples of thyroid paraffin tissue of Hashimoto's thyroiditis patients were taken from the pathology department of Loghman Hakim Hospital in Tehran. A questionnaire collected demographic infor- mation of patients. After DNA extraction from the samples, the nested-PCR technique was performed using specific primers for HHV-6. Results: Totally, the HHV6-DNA was found in 34.4% of thyroid tissues of healthy individuals (81.8% female and 18.2% male) and 46.9% of patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (73.3% female and 26.7% male). It was found that this difference in virus frequency between the two groups was not statistically significant (P value=0.309). There was also no statistically significant relationship between the prevalence of human herpesvirus type 6 and age or sex. Conclusion: Based on the present study, the number of HHV-6-infected individuals in Hashimoto's patients and controls did not differ significantly; therefore, HHV-6 appears not to be associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Despite great medical advances, oncological research is still looking for novel therapeutic approaches due to the limitation of conventional therapeutic agents. Virotherapy is one of these new emerging therapeutic approaches that attract attention with their widespread applications. Virotherapy use lives oncolytic viruses or genetically engineered viruses that selectively infect the tumor cells, replicate, and disrupt the cancerous cells that also induce their anticancer activity by stimulating the host antitumor immune response. Moreover, viruses are widely used as target delivery vectors for specifically delivering different genes, therapeutic agents, and immune‐stimulating agents. In addition to having antitumor activity by themselves in combination with conventional therapeutic agents like immune therapy and chemotherapy, Virotherapy agents also elicit promising outcomes. Therefore, in addition to their promising result in monotherapy use, virotherapy agents can also be used in combination with conventional cancer therapy, epigenetic modulators, and even microRNAs without any cross‐resistance, which allows the patient not to be deprived of her routine medicine. Still, this combination therapy reduces the adverse effect of the conventional therapies. All together suggest that virotherapy agents as novel potential agents in the field of cancer therapy.

No abstract

BackgroundSchizophrenia (SC) and bipolar disorder (BD) are among the most devastating diseases worldwide. There are several lines of evidence suggesting that viruses may play significant roles in the etiology of these mental disorders. The aim of this study was the detection of HHV-6A/B in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of SC and BD patients versus the healthy control (HC) subjects using a new method of type-specific Real time PCR analysis.MethodsA type-specific Real time PCR was performed for simultaneous detection and typing of HHV-6A/B in the PBMCs of 120 SC and BD patients and 75 HCs.ResultsOnly one case of HHV-6B out of 120 (0.8 %) SC and BD patients and two cases of HHV-6A (2.7 %) in 75 HCs were detected.ConclusionsThe low levels of HHV-6 detection in PBMCs, severely limited the capacity of this study to investigate the association between the presence of HHV-6 and BD or SC in this population, thus no conclusions can be drawn in this regard. Meanwhile this study introduces a Real time PCR based method for type specific detection of HHV-6A/B in clinical samples.