Electromagnetic radiation therapy for Parkinson's disease tremor reduction- systematic reviews and Bayesian meta-analyses for comparing the effectiveness of electric, magnetic and light stimulation methods.

PURPOSE: Tremor is one of the key characteristics of Parkinson's disease (PD), leading to physical disabilities and often showing limited responses to pharmacological treatments. To suppress tremors in PD patients, several types of non-invasive and non-pharmacological methods have been proposed so far. In the current systematic review, three electromagnetic-based radiation strategies including electrical stimulation, magnetic stimulation, and light stimulation methods were reviewed and compared. METHODS: Major databases were searched to retrieve eligible studies. For the meta-analysis, a random-effect Bayesian framework was used. Also, heterogeneity between studies was assessed using I2 statistic, prediction interval, and tau2. Publication bias was assessed using funnel plot, and the effectiveness of methods for reducing tremor was compared using network Bayesian meta-analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Thirty-one studies were found for qualitative analysis, and 16 studies were found for quantitative synthesis. Based on the suppression ratio, methods can be ordered as electrical stimulation, light therapy, and magnetic stimulation. Furthermore, the results showed that electrical and magnetic stimulation were more effective for tremor suppression at early stages of PD, while light therapy was found to be more effective during the later stages of PD.

Extraction and purification of the H9N2 virus nucleoprotein: A simple and practical method.

Background: Avian Influenza disease annually entails a significant economic loss to the poultry industry around the world. Influenza virus is a polymorphic virus of the orthomyxoviridae family (single-stranded RNA genome), and nucleoprotein (NP) is the structural and internal protein of the virus. The aim of the work was to purify nucleoprotein for further investigations with a simple, low-cost, fast and practical method. Methods: In this study, H9N2 influenza virus was isolated in specific pathogen-free embryonated chicken eggs by allantoically inoculating 103 to 105 egg-infective doses (EID50) for 9 to 11 days, purified by 10% (W/V) polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 with a sucrose gradient of 60% to 30%. The influenza virus proteins were collected and prepared as fractions by preparative electrophoresis. Finally, the purified NP was subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Western blot procedures. Results: The protein analysis with SDS-PAGE and silver nitrate staining indicated that the desired samples contained purified nucleoprotein and lacked other viral proteins. The results of the investigation of lyophilized fractions containing nucleoprotein on the SDS-PAGE revealed the absence of viral RNA in nucleoprotein and its high purity. Conclusion: According to this study, purified nucleoprotein can be used to produce nucleoprotein vaccines, as well as to study structural, molecular and diagnostic and therapeutic materials.

Production of Erythropoietin-Specific Polyclonal Antibodies.

BACKGROUND: Erythropoietin, as a principal hormone promotes red blood cell production in bone marrow. Varieties of erythropoietin biosimilar are being produced by recombinant DNA technology in cell cultures. The detection or quantifi cation of these molecules are being performed by diff erent methods which some of theme such as Western blot and enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) require specifi c antibodies. High cost, inappropriate shipping (cold chain failures), reduced sensitivity and thus poor detection performance are common pitfalls of using commercial kits for performing immunological tests. OBJECTIVES: To produce in-house polyclonal antibody against active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) of recombinant human erythropoietin (rh-EPO) was the aim of this study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two healthy female albino rabbits were injected four times in 14 days interval using rh-EPO API as antigen. The produced antibody was separated from plasma via either caprylic acid or saturated ammonium sulfate precipitation and the results were compared from each purification methodologies. The antibody was further purified by ion exchange chromatography. Acceptable purity and good immunogenicity were detected respectively by SDS-PAGE and western blot analysis. The purified antibody was compared with a commercial kit to determine rh-EPO concentration in diff erent steps of production batches via ELISA. RESULTS: The purity of antibodies after ion exchange chromatography, obtained from caprylic acid and ammonium sulfate precipitation were 97 and 80%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: As producing in house kits is one of the important challenges of bio- pharmaceutical manufacturers, a simple, cost- and time-effective, and easy to scale up strategy for making in-house polyclonal antibody was set up. Caprylic acid precipitation resulted higher purity than ammonium sulfate and fi nally purified antibody (97% purity) used as a capture antibody in sandwich ELISA test was able to detect erythropoietin antigen as sensitive (100%) and specifi c (100%) as commercial kits.

Evaluation of the thermal stability of a novel strain of live-attenuated mumps vaccine (RS-12 strain) lyophilized in different stabilizers.

The stability of live-attenuated viral vaccines is important for immunization efficacy. Here, the thermostabilities of lyophilized live-attenuated mumps vaccine formulations in two different stabilizers, a trehalose dihydrate-based stabilizer and a stabilizer containing sucrose, human serum albumin and sorbitol were investigated using accelerated stability tests at 4°C, 25°C and 37°C at time points between 4h (every 4h for the first 24h) and 1 week. Even under the harshest storage conditions of 37°C for 1 week, the 50% cell culture infective dose (CCID50) determined from titrations in Vero cells dropped by less than 10-fold using each stabilizer formulation and thus complied with the World Health Organization's requirements for the potency of live-attenuated mumps vaccines. However, as the half-life of the RS-12 strain mumps virus infectivity was lengthened substantially at elevated temperatures using the trehalose dihydrate (TD)-based stabilizer, this stabilizer is recommended for vaccine use.