Study of the association of toll like-4 receptor gene polymorphism (rs1927911) and susceptibility to urinary tract infection among Iraqi patients

Introduction and Aim: Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are cell innate immune receptors that explore microbial molecules. A quantity of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the TLR genes have been related with altered susceptibility to infectious, inflammatory, and allergic diseases suggesting: This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between genetic polymorphism in TLR4 gene (rs1927911) with susceptibility to UTIs in a sample of Iraqi patients.   Materials and Methods: Blood samples were collected from 220 patients who had UTIs and 69 healthy subjects as control group, during the period from October 2021 to March 2022, at the Rheumatology Department of Clinic Consultant at Al-Yarmouk Hospital. The genetic study included an extraction of genomic DNA and PCR technique, to detect the role of TLR4 gene in the variation site (rs1927911) as a risk factor for the incidence of UTIs.   Results: The results of genotype distribution and allele frequency of rs1927911 indicated, CC (18.6 %), CT (70 %) and TT (11.4 %) among the patients while 57.9 % for CC and 26.1%; 16% for CT, TT genotypes respectively of healthy control. Heterozygous (CT) may be considered as a risk factor among UTIs patients. The results revealed significant differences between UTIs patients and healthy controls in serum levels TLR4, IL-6 IL-2, TNF-alpha and IL-10 at P 0.005. In addition, the data found a highly significant difference of serum level of TLR4 protein with patients who have a carrier CT genotype.   Conclusion: our findings indicated that the carriers of CT genotype of TLR4 (rs1927911) were significantly more prone to UTIs.

Immunoinformatics design of multi-epitope peptide-based vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae strain using cell division protein

Haemophilus influenzae is a pathogen that causes invasive bacterial infections in humans. The highest prevalence lies in both young children and adults. Generally, there are no vaccines available that target all the strains of Haemophilus influenzae. Hence, the purpose of this research is to employ bioinformatics and immunoinformatics approaches to design a Multi-Epitope Vaccine candidate employing the pathogenic cell division protein FtsN that specifically combat all the Haemophilus influenzae strains. The current research focuses on developing subunit vaccine in contrast to vaccines generated from the entire pathogen. This will be accomplished by combining multiple bioinformatics and immunoinformatics approaches. As a result, prospective T cells (helper T lymphocyte and cytotoxic T lymphocytes) and B cells epitopes were investigated. The human leukocyte antigen allele having strong associations with the antigenic and overlapping epitopes were chosen, with 70% of the total coverage of the world population. To construct a linked vaccine design, multiple linkers were used. To increase the immunogenic profile, an adjuvant was linked using EAAAK linker. The final vaccine construct with 149 amino acids was obtained after adjuvants and linkers were added. The developed Multi-Epitope Vaccine has a high antigenicity as well as viable physiochemical features. The 3D conformation was modeled and undergoes refinement and validation using bioinformatics methods. Furthermore, protein-protein molecular docking analysis was performed to predict the effective binding poses of Multi-Epitope Vaccine with the Toll-like receptor 4 protein. Besides, vaccine underwent the codon translational optimization and computational cloning to verify the reliability and proper Multi-Epitope Vaccine expression. In addition, it is necessary to conduct experiments and research in the laboratory to demonstrate that the vaccine that has been developed is immunogenic and protective.

Folate-methotrexate loaded bovine serum albumin nanoparticles preparation: an in vitro drug targeting cytokines overwhelming expressed immune cells from rheumatoid arthritis patients

The study planned to estimate biological parameters linked to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, detecting the influence of MTX and biotherapy treatments on these parameters and synthesizing methotrexate bovine serum albumin nanoparticles linked to folate (FA-MTX-BSA NPs) to reduce the overwhelming expression of inflammatory cytokines. Inflammatory parameters showed significant increases in newly diagnosed and MTX-receiving groups while no changes were observed in the biotherapy-maintained group. MTX-loaded BSA nanoparticles were fabricated by the desolvation method and further linked to activated folic acid to obtain FA-MTX-BSA NPs. FA-MTX-BSA NPs were successfully characterized within the nanoscale range using different screening techniques. FA-MTX-BSA NPs showed an in vitro release in a sustained manner. The potential of MTX, MTX-BSA NPs, and FA-MTX-BSA NPs in inducing cytokine level reduction was detected. Significant decreases in interleukin- 1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) levels were obtained in cultures treated with FA-MTX-BSA NPs compared to the untreated culture in a dose-dependent pattern. Furthermore, FA-MTX-BSA NPs comparing with MTX and MTX-BSA NPs exhibited a significant advanced effect in decreasing cytokines levels. Accordingly, the conjunction of BSA NPs and MTX linked to folate potentially reduced cytokines manifestation in RA.