Investigation of an inflammatory viral disease HBV in cardiac patients through polymerase chain reaction

In the present study 100 cardiac patients were randomly selected from the cardiology ward, Allied Hospital Faisalabad, Pakistan. All the selected cases were analysed for different parameters like Hepatitis B surface Antigen (HbsAg), Bilirubin, Alkaline phosphatase, serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase, and serum glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase. Out of total 16% patients were lying in the age of 21-30 year, 25% in the age of 31-40 year, 35% in the age of 41-50 year, 19% in the age of 51-60 years and 5% patients in the age of 61-70 years. No subject was found positive in age group 21-30 years patients. 35% patients have higher value of SGPT while, other 26% were with higher value of SGOT. Rest of the 32 and 24% have higher ALP and Bilirubin levels, respectively. Assay profile revealed that ALP level was increased with increasing age, body mass index, Creactive protein, diabetes, smoking, sex, serum uric acid, lead, cadmium, hypercholesterolemia, lesion of liver and cardiovascular disease. The serum of the eight HbsAg positive cases were tested for the presence of HBV through PCR and no sample was found positive. At the end of the study, PCR amplified samples were run on 1.5% agarose gel to confirm the case.

Sorting Semiconducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes by Water-Soluble Polyfluorene Assisted Electrophoresis and Its Application in Field-effect Transistors

We report a considerably promising method based on agarose gel electrophoresis （AGE） to separate single-walled carbon nanotubes by adding a water-soluble polyfluorene （w-PFO） as surfactant into the agarose gel. In this effective method, the AGE/w-PFO gel network will trap more semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes （SWNTs） with the assistance ofw-PFO, for the strong interaction between w-PFO and semiconducting species. The optical absorbance, photoluminescence emission and resonant Raman scattering characterization were used to ver- ify the separation effect. The purity of separated semiconducting species is as high as （98±1）%. The demonstrated field effect transistors give the on/off ratio and mobility about 27000 and 10.2 cm^2·V^-1·s^-1, respectively.

Characterization of Episomal Replication of Bovine Papillomavirus Type 1 DNA in Long-Term Virion-Infected Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Culture

We have previously reported that bovine papillomavirus type 1(BPV-1) DNA can replicate its genome and produce infectious virus-like particles in short term virion-infected S. cerevisiae(budding yeast) cultures(Zhao and Frazer 2002,Journal of Virology, 76:3359–64 and 76:12265–73). Here, we report the episomal replications of BPV-1 DNA in long term virion-infected S. cerevisiae culture up to 108 days. Episomal replications of the BPV-1 DNA could be divided into three patterns at three stages, early active replication(day 3–16), middle weak replication(day 23–34/45) and late stable replication(day 45–82). Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis analysis and Southern blot hybridization have revealed further that multiple replication intermediates of BPV-1 DNA including linear form, stranded DNA, monomers and higher oligomers were detected in the virion-infected yeast cells over the time course. Higher oligomers shown as covalently closed circular DNAs(cccDNAs) are the most important replication intermediates that serve as the main nuclear transcription template for producing all viral RNAs in the viral life cycle. In this study, the cccDNAs were generated at the early active replication stage with the highest frequencies and then at late stable replication, but they appeared to be suppressed at the middle weak replication. Our data provided a novel insight that BPV-1 genomic DNA could replicate episomally for the long period and produce the key replication intermediates cccDNAs in S. cerevisiae system.