Serum gamma-glutamyltransferase, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase activity in Iranian healthy blood donor men.

AIM: To determine serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activity, and to assess their correlation with demographic and clinical findings in healthy blood donors. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed in 934 male blood donors, aged 18 to 68 years, who consecutively attended Tehran blood transfusion service in 2006. All participants were seronegative for HBV or HCV infections, non alcohol users, and all underwent a standard interview and anthropometric tests. Clinical and biochemical parameters including AST, ALT, and GGT activities were determined. Patients taking drugs known to cause hepatic fat deposition were excluded. For AST, ALT, and GGT variables, we used 33.33 and 66.66 percentiles, so that each of them was divided into three tertiles. RESULTS: Mean AST, ALT, and GGT activities were 25.26 +/- 12.58 U/L (normal range 5-35 U/L), 33.13 +/- 22.98 (normal range 5-35 U/L), and 25.11 +/- 18.32 (normal range 6-37 U/L), respectively. By univariate analyses, there were significant associations between increasing AST, ALT, or GGT tertiles and age, body weight, body mass index, and waist and hip circumferences (P<0.05). By multiple linear regression analyses, ALT was found to be positively correlated with dyslipidemia (B=6.988, P=0.038), whereas ALT and AST were negatively correlated with age. AST, ALT, and GGT levels had positive correlation with family history of liver disease (B=15.763, P<0.001), (B=32.345, P<0.001), (B=24.415, P<0.001), respectively. CONCLUSION: Although we did not determine the cutoffs of the upper normal limits for AST, ALT, and GGT levels, we would suggest screening asymptomatic patients with dyslipidemia and also subjects with a family history of liver disease.

Detection of lactoferrin in the neutrophils and plasma of the patients suffering from hepatitis C.

Lactoferrin (LF) has antimicrobial properties against bacteria, fungi and several viruses including herpes virus, HIV and hepatitis C virus. The aim of this study was to detect LF in PMNs and plasma of the patients suffering from hepatitis C and the healthy persons. The sonicated solutions of PMNs of two groups were evaluated by SDS-PAGE (10%), isoelectric focusing (30%) and dot blotting. The level of LF in plasma was measured by ELISA. The results confirmed the presence of LF in PMNs of the two groups. ELISA showed that the level of LF in plasma of patients was higher than normal persons. Based on these findings we conclude that not only the production of LF was not reduced in the patients but also its level was significantly increased compared with the normal persons(P less than 0.0001).