Reports of Biochemistry

Background: Dental caries is a chronic disease among children and pneumonia is often seen in young children. Soluble CD14 (sCD14) protein is released by monocytes and changes in periodontal infection. The study aimed to estimate the level of salivary sCD14 in children with early childhood caries in association with pneumonia.

Methods: This case-control study was conducted on 52 children aged between 2 to 5 years. A total of 17 children who were caries free, with no past systemic illness; 17 children with dental caries with no history of systemic illness or dental treatment for caries, and 18 children with caries and pneumonia were included in the control and test groups respectively. Unstimulated saliva of all children was collected. All samples were tested using a commercial available sCD14 ELISA kit.

Results: The sCD14 level was elevated in all three groups. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the mean level of sCD14 values between the groups. Control group had the highest mean sCD14 values (15070.99 ± 4296.44), followed by the caries group (13629.83 ± 5603.76) and pneumonia group (8566.86 ± 4778.81). There is a significant difference between the groups with p=0.001.

Conclusions: Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that sCD14 can be used as an indicator of the healthy functioning of the oral cavity.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine the levels of serum ischemia-modified albumin (IMA), fibrinogen (FIB) and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients with hypertension (HT) (DMT2HTN) and without HT (DMT2). Also, their association with certain biochemical and physical factors were studied to identify possible risk factors that lead to cardiovascular complications.

Methods: Fasting blood samples were collected from 35 DMT2 or DMT2HTN patients each to analyze differences in serum and plasma levels of IMA, hs-CRP, FIB, total cholesterol (TC), high and low density lipoproteins (HDL and LDL), triglyceride (TG), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1C), glycated hemoglobin and creatinine.

Results: In DMT2 and DMT2HTN patients, IMA, hs-CRP, FIB, TC, TG, HDL, LDL, glycated hemoglobin and creatinine levels, including body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), were significantly higher relative to healthy controls. In addition, the levels of IMA, hs-CRP and FIB levels showed a strong link to BMI, WHR, TC, TG, LDL and glycated hemoglobin. Lastly, both DMT2 and DMT2HTN patients demonstrated a significant reduction in HDL.

Conclusions: DMT2 and DMT2HTN patients have a greater risk of developing cardiovascular related complications. This study suggests that quantifying hs-CRP, IMA and FIB levels can help diagnose the risk of developing complications during the early stages of metabolic and cardiovascular disease. Overall, the specific risk factors may be used for early identification of cardiovascular complications to decrease mortality and morbidity in T2DM patients.

Background: Stem cell differentiation therapy is a promising strategy in cancer treatment. we show that protein cocktail prepared from serum starved fibroblasts has therapeutic potential based on this strategy.

Methods: The condition medium was prepared from foreskin isolated fibroblasts and analyzed by Liquid chromatography electrospray ionization mass spectrometry-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS). LA7 mammary gland cancer stem cells originated tumors were induced in Sprague Dawley rats. The rats treated subcutaneously with DMEM (group A), condition medium (group B), or normal saline (group C) once daily for 7 days. Then the tumors were removed and divided into the two parts, one part was used to quantify gene expression by stem-loop RT-qPCR assay and the other part was used for Hematoxylin & Eosin (H & E), Giemsa, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining.

Results: All induced tumors appeared as sarcomatoid carcinoma (SC). Immunohistochemistry staining confirmed this conclusion by recognizing the tumor as Ki67+, cytokeratin+, vimentine+, and estrogen receptor negative SC. RT-qPCR analysis revealed that Oct4-, Sox-2, Nanog- gene expression was much reduced in the condition medium treated tumors versus proper controls (p< 0.05). Tissue necrosis was more prevalent in this group while tumors volume was diminished almost by 40%. The LC-ESI-MS/MS analysis unrevealed the stemness reducing and the cell death inducing proteins such as, pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), insulin like growth factor binding protein-5 (IGFBP-5) and -7 (IGFBP-7) in the condition medium.

Conclusions: This study showed that the substances released from starved human fibroblasts were able to down-regulate the stemness-related genes and induce necrosis in LA7 derived tumors.