Biomedical subjects

M Ergazaki

Publications and source records attributed to M Ergazaki.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluation of western blot in routine diagnosis of hepatitis C virus.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is among the major causes of parenterally transmitted hepatitis. Detection of infected persons would greatly diminish transmission rates and is therefore a significant parameter for prevention. Current assays are not able to resolve all cases and sometimes the results are controversial. The present study outlines problems that arise during routine testing. Two ELISA tests and three confirmatory tests were used and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) data were available for some of the samples. The results of this study show that only 77.4% of samples positive for both ELISAs were confirmed as being positive. Controversial ELISA results remained controversial, depending on the confirmatory test used. PCR results, though not complete, point to the major problem of Western blot (WB) negative sera that prove positive for the viral genome and have to be excluded from screening for blood and organ donation. Since PCR cannot be used as a routine screening procedure, improvement of the routine assays is needed to minimize ambiguous results.

Blotting, Western↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Ras oncogene activation in benign and malignant colorectal tumours.

Activation of ras family genes has been implicated in colorectal tumourigenesis. K-ras is the most frequently altered gene in colorectal neoplasias. The major activating mechanism involves point mutations, although recent data have shown a more complex role, through qualitative alterations. The incidence of codon 12 mutations in K-ras and N-ras genes in patients with primary colorectal adenocarcinomas was examined. We employed a non radioactive PCR-RFLP assay for the detection of mutant samples. We found a significant K-ras activation at codon 12 (38%), while the incidence of N-ras codon 12 activation was limited to 1.5%. These results are in agreement with previous reports. Association has been investigated with clinical and histopathological parameters. Point mutations appear to be more frequent in carcinomas with elements indicating a development from adenoma, in ages below 50 years, in females who had the tumor located at the rest of the large bowel in comparison with rectosigmoid and in higher grade of differentiation.

Adenocarcinoma↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Detection of the cytomegalovirus by the polymerase chain reaction DNA amplification in a kidney transplanted patient.

Cytomegalovirus injection is common in kidney transplanted patients. Viremia is the only marker of active CMV infection, but the use of cell culture for the direct detection of the virus is time-consuming and not very sensitive, while the detection of CMV by measuring the titre of antibodies is difficult due to the immunosuppression these patients undergo. Thus the ability to amplify CMV DNA by the polymerase chain reaction from blood or urine samples of the patients becomes a valuable diagnostic tool for the detection of CMV in the early stages of the infection. Using a set of primers specific for the amplification of a 435 bp region of the IE-1 gene, we detected CMV DNA in blood leucocytes of a kidney transplanted patient who received the transplant from a CMV-seropositive donor, 45 days after the operation, while the antibody titre showed no evidence of active CMV infection.

Antibodies, Viral↗