Journal of Genes and Cells

51-56

Authors: Madjid Momeni-Moghaddam

Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) is a highly infectious and contagious viral pathogen of chickens worldwide. IBV is a positive sense, single-stranded RNA virus that primarily targets the respiratory tract. IBV belongs to group III of the genus Coronavirus of the Coronaviridae family. In this study, viral RNA was extracted using phenol-chloroform based method. A pair of specific primers for RT-PCR and a pair of specific internal primers for Nested-PCR of the S1 region in the spike protein gene was designed and the tests were optimized for the detection of IBV. To determine the sensitivity of the test, 10 fold dilutions of virus stock (3 × 105 EID50 to 3 × 10-2 EID50/ml) were prepared in distilled water. A 531 bp fragment and a 284 bp of the spike protein gene (S1) were amplified in the RT-PCR and the Nested-PCR test, respectively. The PCR product was cloned in pTZ57R/T vector and sequenced. The sequence data confirmed the specificity of the test. The sensitivity of RT- PCR was determined to be 3×103 EID50 per ml. Nested-PCR was also carried out and sensitivity was increased to 3×10 EID50 per ml. Due to the high sensitivity of this test, this technique can be used as a robust and rapid diagnostic method for the detection of IBV.

67-70

Authors: Muhammad Irfan-Maqsood, Monireh Bahrami, Raheleh Amirkhah

Cancer is an abnormality of cells in which cells are proliferating in an uncontrolled manner due to some unwanted mutations. Any cells from any part of body can be cancerous and may form tumors later on. These tumors develop tumorsphere and their microenvironment modulate T cells as a survival mechanism and these immune cells failed to identify the cancerous cells, allowing them to metastasis. A number of therapeutic approaches such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy etc. are being applied in clinical practices to remove tumors or kill tumor cells. Cell therapy has shown a promising potential in last two decades in cancer treatment as some cells such as mesenchymal stem cells have tumor tropism and induce apoptosis in cancer cells. Recently, immunotherapeutic approaches have been considered the gold standard and it has been shown that T cells isolated from the cancer patient can be trained to target cancer cells. In this process, chimeric antibody receptor (CAR) and T-cell receptor (TCR) are introduced on the T cell surface to enhance T cells function and their transfer in the patient’s circulatory system result in the identification and killing of cancerous cells. This approach has been known as the adoptive cell transfer or adoptive cell therapy (T cells) and has shown 99% promising results in 243 clinical trials done so far. Clinical trials are going on to determine its efficacy in cancer treatment and a number of pharmaceutical firms are developing adoptive T cells as drugs to treat cancer in our daily routine clinical practice. Results obtained yet, have shown the perspective of adoptive cell therapy as the future approved cancer therapy.

73-75

Authors: Muhammad Ali

Prostate cancer is one of the deadliest male malignancy in the worldwide. It has been estimated that 1.1 million cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in 2012 and within coming 10 years, the prostate cancer cases will be increased by 15 per cent in men. The multifaceted molecular anomaly of prostate cancer has confronted it from being dated owing to the orchestrated carcinogenic functions of negative regulators which work in a network. An as yet blurred view of therapeutic interventions of prostate cancer has been acknowledged, resulting from the addition of substantial fraction of information. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening is currently known as a method for early detection of prostate cancer but its validity as prostate cancer biomarker is still controversial. Information obtained from the sequencing data of prostate cancer tissue biopsy, it has been described that non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs are good source of information to detect the prostate cancer. This information can be used to detect, predict metastatic state and even the state of prostate cancer progression. In this commentary, the role of microRNAs has been discussed in prostate cancer detection.