Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Mihaela Zlei.
Both innate and adaptive immunity against Listeria monocytogenes are essential in circumventing or fighting the disease, although there is no clear delineation of the precise role of either in listeriosis. A consistent amount of in vivo experiments have generated a complex picture over the impact of listerial infection on the hosts, and they are shortly reviewed in this paper.
UNLABELLED: The prediction of diabetes mellitus is mostly based on the existence of plasma markers. The aim of this preliminary study was to determine islet cell antibodies (ICA) and glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies (GADA) in 28 diabetic children (12 of them having an evolutive disease of 1 year and 16 at the beginning of the diabetes) and to 47 of their first-degree relatives. There have been determined the levels of these two autoantibodies using the ELISA technique. RESULTS: To 17 of the patients with type I diabetes have been found high levels of GADA (60.7%) while 8 cases have positive ICA (28.5%). For the patients whose disease was diagnosed 1 year ago there have been found differences between the patients with and without antibodies regarding the level of the average values of Hb A1c, the daily insulin needs and the remission period. From the tested parents (a total of 25), 7 was GADA positive (28%), 6 had both antibodies present (24%) and one mother was ICA positive (4%). 9 of the brothers and sisters of the diabetic patients had high levels of GADA and 2 had both antibodies present. To the first-degree relatives with autoantibodies must be determined other plasma markers too (IAA, IA-2A) as well as genetic markers (HLA typing). CONCLUSION: The use of plasma markers is recommended as a first step in discovering the relatives with potential risk of developing the disease.
In the last two decades, listeriosis, caused by the intracellular pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, became one of the most concerning food-born infections. Although it had been known before as an infectious disease of limited importance, listeriosis was brought into attention of scientists due to the frequent outbreaks recently reported. Despite the major progress made towards understanding the mechanisms of virulence of L. monocytogenes, our current knowledge into the process of Listeria-associated pathogenesis and virulence is still partial and fragmentary. In this study we demonstrate that T lymphocytes with reactivity to L. monocytogenes are frequently present in healthy individuals (73%), most probably as a consequence of subclinical infections. Host resistance to infection by L. monocytogenes involves a series of interactions between cells of the immune system, of which the antigen presenting cell/T lymphocyte partnership is essential. The ability of memory T cells to respond when exposed to their target antigen is traditionally assessed by measuring uptake of [3H] - thymidine. Our study has been carried out by means of an alternative methodology based on flow-cytometry, an approach which has several advantages on [3H] - thymidine incorporation technique: allows targeted analysis of particular cell types, simultaneous assessment of various cellular markers, and circumvents handling of radioisotopes.
We have investigated the cellular and serum CK18 in 26 non-treated primary ductal invasive breast carcinomas. The soluble CK18 (TPS) was detected by chemiluminescent assay, and the cellular CK18 and PCNA expression by immunocytochemistry. Flow-cytometry was used to estimate the amount of DNA in malignant cells. There was a significant correlation between soluble CK18 and the pre-menopausal status (p < 0.05), characterized in our group by a PCNA estimated low proliferation index. We have also found a significant correlation between soluble CK18 and the DNA index (p < 0.01). The intracellular CK18 has correlated with the PCNA expression (p < 0.05), while no correlation could be found between cellular and serum CK18. The values of soluble CK18 may offer information about the treatment-induced cell death, if monitored, while isolated measurements should be interpreted cautiously. Elevated levels of serum CK18 in non-treated carcinomas may rather reflect a high tumor turn-over or perhaps a more intensive tumor cell killing.