Evaluation of the role of some parasitic infections as a cause of acute and chronic hepatic diseases.

A total of 200 patients with acute and chronic hepatic diseases and 100 apparently normal cross-matched controls were examined for the parasitic cause. The IHAT showed 3% had hydatid cysts, 3% had fascioliasis and 53.5% had schistosomiasis. However, no eggs were detected in the fascioliasis patients and only 4 & 3 cases showed S. mansoni and S. haematobium eggs in stools & urines respectively. ELISA showed 10% with visceral larva migrans & 65.5% with toxoplasmosis (IgG, IgM or both). On the other hand, 27% of the controls showed antibodies against toxoplasmosis.

Studies on the megatrypanum trypanosomes of the Egyptian bat (Pipistrellum kuhli) from Sohag Governorate, Egypt.

Out of 150 Egyptian bats (Pipistrellus Kuhli) hunted in the premises of Sohag City, 60 (40%) were harbouring typanosomes of the subgenus Megatypanum (Hoare, 1964). They were T. M. heybergi (Rodhian, 1923), T. M. possoai (Dean and Sugary, 1963) and T. M. magadermae (Wenyon, 1990).

The immunogenic effect of purified antigens of B. alexandrina against S. mansoni in experimental animals (II) as measured by the histopathological changes in the liver.

It can be safely said that up till now, no method of vaccination (including recent genes encoding vaccines) has yet proved to be totally effective since they gave partial and low levels of protection against S. mansoni infection. The objective of this work is to try testing the immunogenic effect of two purified non infected B. alexandrina hepatopancreas through histopathological changes in liver of Swiss albino mice (15-20 gm). Gel filtration chromatography was used to fractionate the crude antigen into five fractions followed by re-fractionation and determination of their molecular weights by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Four dilutions of Fiv (20000-29000 daltons) and Fv (20000-24000 daltons) were injected in two groups of mice (33 each) at weekly intervals and another control group was injected with phosphate buffer saline (PBS) in the same manner. Sacrification was done seven weeks from infection with 100 S. mansoni cercariae through immersion method. The results revealed that there is marked histopathological changes in liver of the control group in comparison to the two vaccinated groups which appear more or less normal with slight inflammatory infiltrate.

Solubilization and reconstitution of vesicular stomatitis virus envelope using octylglucoside.

Reconstituted vesicular stomatitis virus envelopes or virosomes are formed by detergent removal from solubilized intact virus. We have monitored the solubilization process of the intact vesicular stomatitis virus by the nonionic surfactant octylglucoside at various initial virus concentrations by employing turbidity measurements. This allowed us to determine the phase boundaries between the membrane and the mixed micelles domains. We have also characterized the lipid and protein content of the solubilized material and of the reconstituted envelope. Both G and M proteins and all of the lipids of the envelope were extracted by octylglucoside and recovered in the reconstituted envelope. Fusion activity of the virosomes tested either on Vero cells or on liposomes showed kinetics and pH dependence similar to those of the intact virus.

Partition coefficient of a surfactant between aggregates and solution: application to the micelle-vesicle transition of egg phosphatidylcholine and octyl beta-D-glucopyranoside.

The mechanism of the solubilization of egg phosphatidylcholine containing 10% (M/M) of egg phosphatidic acid unilamellar vesicles by the nonionic detergent, octyl beta-D-glucopyranoside, has been investigated at both molecular and supramolecular levels by using fluorescence and turbidity measurements. In the lamellar region of the transition, the solubilization process has been shown to be first a function of the initial size before reaching an equilibrium aggregation state at the end of this region (the onset of the micellization process). The analysis during the solubilization process of the evolution of both the fluorescence energy transfer between N-(7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazol-4-yl)-phosphatidylethanolamine (NBD-PE) and N-(lissamine rhodamine B sulfonyl)-phosphatidylethanolamine (Rho-PE) and the fluorescence of 6-dodecanoyl-2-dimethylaminoaphtalene (Laurdan) has allowed us to determine the evolution of the detergent partitioning between the aqueous and the lipidic phases, i.e., the evolution of the molar fraction of OG in the aggregates (XOG/Lip) with its monomeric detergent concentration in equilibrium ([OG]H2O), throughout the vesicle-to-micelle transition without isolating the aqueous medium from the aggregates. The curve described by XOG/Lip versus [OG]H2O shows that the partition coefficient of OG is changing throughout the solubilization process. From this curve, which tends to a value of 1/(critical micellar concentration), five different domains have been delimited: two in the lamellar part of the transition (for 0 < [OG]H2O < 15.6 mM), one in the micellization part, and finally two in the pure micellar region (for 16.5 < [OG]H2O < 21 mM). The first domain in the lamellar part of the transition is characterized by a continuous variation of the partition coefficient. In the second domain, a linear relation relates XOG/Lip and [OG]H2O, indicating the existence of a biphasic domain for which the detergent presents a constant partition coefficient of 18.2 M-1. From the onset to the end of the solubilization process (domain 3), the evolution of (XOG/Lip) with [OG]H2O can be fitted by a model corresponding to the coexistence of detergent-saturated lamellar phase with lipid-saturated mixed micelles, both in equilibrium with an aqueous phase, i.e., a three-phase domain. The micellar region is characterized first by a small two-phase domain (domain 4) with a constant partition coefficient of 21 M-1, followed by a one-phase mixed-micellar domain for which XOG/Lip no longer linearly depends on [OG]H2O. The results are discussed in terms of a phase diagram.