ఇమ్యునోకెమిస్ట్రీ & ఇమ్యునోపాథాలజీ

One area in which immunological studies have had most immediate and successful application is in the field of vaccination. Vaccines represent one of the greatest interventions in modern medicine [1]. Ever since Edward Jenner’s first use of a vaccine against smallpox in 1796, the use of vaccines has become indispensable to the eradication of disease [2]. Then, Scientific progress has driven vaccine development from live attenuated and inactivated vaccines to purified recombinant one. The recent advances in bioinformatics, proteomics, immunoinformatics, structural biology and others have led to vaccinomics and reverse vaccinology as novel approaches for a generation of new vaccines [3]. Reverse vaccinology relies on the genomic information to identify relevant protein antigens and the design of algorithm for mapping potential B and T cell epitopes for diagnostic or vaccine purposes [4].

A 50-year-old woman with well controlled hypertension, hyperlipidemia, plaque psoriasis, exercise induced asthma, and migraine headaches presented with a few days of right eye pain. She was diagnosed with a migraine headache and referred to an Optometrist and ultimately to an Ophthalmologist. On examination, she had significant anterior and posterior uveitis, hemorrhagic retinitis, and optic nerve edema in the right eye. An ocular aqueous fluid sample was obtained and sent for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for viral deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and came back positive for Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV). The patient was diagnosed with Zoster acute retinal necrosis (ARN) and treated with intravitreal (intraocular) injections of Ganciclovir and Foscarnet as well as intravenous Acylovir and then oral Valacyclovir (Valtrex) as well as oral prednisone. ARN is a rare clinical entity caused most commonly by Herpes Simplex Virus 1 or 2 (HSV 1,2) or Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) and almost always occurs without typical cutaneous dermatomal manifestations typical of Shingles. Quick identification along with aggressive antiviral and anti-inflammatory treatment can slow progression of this vision threatening disease and reduce risk of blindness and or involvement of the fellow eye.

Chitosan has attracted much interest due to its special physical and chemical properties related to immunochemistry. The aim of this commentary is to appraise chitosan as an attractive functional polymer for medicine applications, which contributes to the development of chitosan for the immunochemistry. As reported, Chitosan has been used for immunochemistry purpose, such as functional food for enhancement of immune ability, immunostimulant and bio-remediating agent, nanoparticles antigen delivery systems, coating or gel vehicle for drug delivery, composites for intracellular delivery, wound healing medicine, enhance immune responses to virus, as well as other immunochemical materials. The further chemical modifications in chitosan will further assist the scientists for reaching new applications in immunochemistry based on chitosan.

The present study was undertaken to detect parvoviral infection among various breeds, age and sex of dogs using Loop-mediated isothermal Amplification (LAMP) assay. A total of 54 faecal samples collected from diarrheic dogs suspected for CPV infection were subjected LAMP assay using the specified primer sets. Out of the 54 samples collected, 39 (72.2%) were found to be positive using the assay. Analysis of the collected data indicated that pups below five months of age group showed higher risk for CPV enteritis. Breed-wise distribution of CPV infection showed highest occurrence in Rottweilers when compared to other breeds. Also, the occurrence of CPV infections was noticed higher in male dogs than in females.