Background: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common infections in children. Timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment of UTI requires knowledge of etiologic agents and antibiotic resistance pattern of common uropathogens.
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a significant risk factor for post-transplant viral infections in organ transplantation, affecting allograft outcomes. Most current methods attempt to predict HCMV viremia or disease by monitoring virus-specific T cell immunity. This approach may support physicians in limit-How to cite this article: Hassanzadeh Y, Yaghobi R, Pakzad P, Geramizadeh B. Risk assessment of human cytomegalovirus infection in solid organ transplantation: Insight into CD4 + T cell subsets.
Background: Syphilis is an infectious disease caused by Treponema pallidum and transmitted via sexual contact, infected discharge and blood as well as vertical transmission. It causes various impacts on women during pregnancy and their newborns which results in various complications. Thus, screening of syphilis is routinely performed during pregnancy. Choosing to perform a specific screening test is based on the prevalence of the disease in the target population which needs adequate information in this regard. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of syphilis among pregnant women in Shiraz, South-west of Iran.Methods: in this 15 month prospective study, 1100 pregnant women aged between 15 – 42 years, referred to University affiliated hospital in shiraz, Iran were included Blood samples were obtained from all of our study population for performing RPR test. FTA-ABS serologic test was carried out on positive cases of RPR test.Results: 15 suspicious cases with weakly positive RPR test were detected but in all of them FTA-ABS tests were negative.Conclusions: The prevalence and incidence of syphilis was low in our area which may be due to variable reasons, such as reduction in the rate of unsafe and unprotected sex, improving knowledge, and adequate health care services. More studies are still needed to decide whether syphilis screening is beneficial in our area and should be considered as a routine test in pregnancy.
Background
The immunity of CD4+ T cell subsets against human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is considerable due to their essential role in controlling the infection in transplant individuals. Previously explained CD4+ subsets such as T helper (Th) 1 have been proven to have a protective role against HCMV infection, while the role of the recently identified Th22 subset has not been described yet. Here, the frequency changes of Th22 cells and the IL-22 cytokine production were investigated in kidney transplant recipients with and without HCMV infection.
Methods
Twenty kidney transplant patients and ten healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Patients were categorized into HCMV + and HCMV- groups based on the HCMV DNA real-time PCR results. After isolating CD4+ T cells from PBMCs, the phenotype (CCR6+CCR4+CCR10+) and cytokine profile (IFN-γ−IL-17−IL-22+) of Th22 cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. The gene expression of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AHR) transcription factor was analyzed by real-time PCR.
Results
The phenotype frequency of these cells was lower in recipients with infection than in those without infection and healthy controls (1.88 ± 0.51 vs. 4.31 ± 1.05; P = 0.03 and 4.22 ± 0.72; P = 0.01, respectively). A lower Th22 cytokine profile was observed in patients with infection than in the two other groups (0.18 ± 0.03 vs. 0.20 ± 0.03; P = 0.96 and 0.33 ± 0.05; P = 0.04, respectively). AHR expression was also lower in patients with active infection.
Conclusions
Overall, this study for the first time suggests that the reduced levels of Th22 subset and IL-22 cytokine in patients with active HCMV infection might indicate the protective role of these cells against HCMV.
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