ABSTRACT
Background: Staphylococcal protein A [SPA] is a cell wall component of Staphylococcus aureus that binds to different IgG subclasses of human and several animal species. This bacterial protein can be used as an antibody detector in various immunological assays or as an isolation reagent for the purification of antibody molecules via immuno-chromatography procedures
Objectives: Molecular cloning and expression of SPA followed by the purification and conjugation of the recombinant protein to peroxidase enzyme
Material and Methods: Encoding DNA fragment of SPA was amplified and inserted into a prokaryotic plasmid vector for the expression of recombinant SPA fused to a maltose binding protein [MBP]. The recombinant protein was purified using amylose resin column chromatography and conjugated to horseradish peroxidase [HRP] enzyme. Finally, the reactivity of the recombinant SPA was examined against human IgG molecules in ELISA
Results: The results indicated that the recombinant peroxidase-conjugated SPA has a good recognition capacity for human IgG molecules and it was able to produce significant OD values after reacting with human IgG molecules at a concentration up to 0.06 micro g.well[-1]
Conclusions: This recombinant protein can be very useful in all research laboratories and may decrease some of the expenses, e.g. those for preparing conjugated anti-antibodies
ABSTRACT
Background: Cervical cancer is one of the important reasons of mortality among females. Prevention, early diagnosis and immediate treatment can affect the rate of mortality in this cancer and several epidemiological studies have shown a strong relationship between human papilloma viruses [HPVs] and cervical cancer
Objectives: The present study was conducted to survey HPV infections in a women population with cervical cancer and cervical dysplasia/metaplasia in southwest of Iran
Materials and Methods: 72 paraffin-embedded cervical biopsies which had been previously archived from women with cervical cancer and cervical dysplasia were examined by polymerase chain reaction [PCR]. Afterward, the detected HPV strains were typed by restriction fragment length polymorphism [RFLP] analysis of PCR amplicons
Results: 60 out of 72 samples had necessary requirements and HPV DNA was detected in 43.3% of these samples. Most HPV positive samples belonged to women aged from 48 to 63 years. On the other hand, HPV infection among patients with squamous cell carcinoma [SCC] was 48.78% and in women with dysplasia/metaplasia was 26.66%. The most prevalent type of the human papilloma virus was HPV16 [100%]
Conclusions: Knowing the most prevalent type of the human papilloma viruses circulating in the population [HPV16] can be applied in the future screening and managing programs of this major disease and also in vaccination against the prevalent types of the virus. Meanwhile, it seems that more studies should be performed to determine the role of different risk factors involved in development of the disease, especially those related with social behaviors and traditions with respect to different areas