ABSTRACT
Aims: To prove the effect of S. typhimurium vaccine on inhibiting foam cell formation and arterial wall thickness, and also to decrease body weight and abdominal visceral fat. Study Design: This experimental research was conducted using rat models. Place and Duration of Study: Faculty of Medicine, Brawijaya University, Indonesia, between February – May 2011. Methodology: The vaccine was 108 CFU of heat-killed S. typhimurium/100μl vaccine per rat. The adjuvant was CFA-IFA 100μl per rat. Twenty Wistar rats were divided into fivegroups: a negative control group (have normal diet), and four treatment groups which were given with atherogenic diet. The four treatment groups were positive control group (atherogenic diet only), vaccine + adjuvant group (added with the vaccine + adjuvants), vaccine group (added with vaccine only), and adjuvant group (added with adjuvant only). The vaccines were injected intraperitoneally, five times in two-week intervals. Results: There was no significantly difference in the average diet intake every day among the groups (P=0.17). The administration of ‘vaccine + adjuvants’, ‘vaccine only’ and ‘adjuvants only’ could decrease foam cell formation and arterial wall thickness compared to the positive control group (P= .00). The ‘vaccine alone’ treatment returned the foam cell numbers to be a normal value just like negative control (P=.15), but ‘vaccine + adjuvants ‘and ‘adjuvant alone’ did not (P=.01). There was a strong and significantly correlation between the foam cell formation with arterial wall thickness (R=0.842, P=.00). In addition, administration of ‘vaccine only’ decreased the rats’ body weight and abdominal visceral fat accumulation significantly compared to the positive control (P=.04 and P=.00 respectively). Conclusion: The heat-killed Salmonella typhimurium vaccine without CFA-IFA adjuvant decreases foam cells expression and aortic wall thickness, body weight, and abdominal visceral fat accumulation in rat-induced atherogenic diet. In suggestion, heat-killed S. typhimurium is a potential antigen to be developed as an atherosclerosis vaccine in the future.
ABSTRACT
To determine whether or not the use of colchicine decreases the risk of amyloidosis among Armenian patients with familial Mediterranean fever [FMF]. The study included 99 Armenian patients from the Center of Medical Genetics database with genetically ascertained FMF; 33 had renal amyloidosis and 66 were randomly selected control patients without renal amyloidosis. Self-reported colchicine use was assessed by interviewer-based questionnaire. The patients with incident amyloidosis were more likely to be older men, but younger at the time of disease onset, and more likely to have had a family history of amyloidosis and M694F mutation in the MEFV gene compared to patients without amyloidosis. The risk of amyloidosis decreased with adequate colchicine use rather than nonadequate use [adjusted odds ratio, OR, 0.48, 95% confidence interval, Cl, 0.16-1.43], continuous colchicine use rather than interrupted use [adjusted OR 0.15, 95% Cl 0.04-0.53], earlier rather than later initiation age of colchicine treatment [adjusted OR 0.95, 95% Cl 0.90-1.01], current colchicine rather than ever/never colchicine use [adjusted OR 0.20,95% Cl 0.05-0.89]. The study demonstrated that colchicine treatment is effective in preventing amyloidosis among Armenian patients with FMF and that earlier initiation and continuous therapy at an adequate dose of 1.2-1.8 mg/day may be associated with a decreased amyloidosis risk among Armenian patients with FMF