Hassan, Lamis Ahmed

Objectives: Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease. This study aimed to determine the association of interleukin-17A-197G/A polymorphism with rheumatoid arthritis in Sudanese patients. Methods: A case–control study was conducted between March and December 2018. Clinical and demographic data of the study participants were collected and analyzed. Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism molecular technique was done to investigate interleukin-17A-197G/A polymorphisms. All statistical tests were considered statistically significant when p < 0.05. Results: The study population included 266 participants aged between 1 and 85 years, with an average of 40 years, classified into 85 (31.2%) cases (mean age 48.5 ± 11.3 years), and 181 (68.8%) controls (mean age 35.3 ± 15.9 years). The interleukin-17A homozygote AA genotype was more frequent among the control group compared to the case group; 95 (52.5%) and 7 (8.2%), respectively. The homozygote GG and the heterozygote AG genotypes were proportionally not different among the cases and control groups; 13 (54.2%) and 11 (45.8%), and 65 (46.4%) and 75 (53.6%), respectively. According to the distribution of interleukin-17A genotypes, a statistically significant difference was observed among cases with the interleukin-17A AA and AG genotypes, p values 0.001 and 0.004, respectively. For the association interleukin-17A genotypes and family history a negatively significant association was reported (95% confidence interval, –0.219, p value = 0.001). There was also a negatively significant association of interleukin-17A genotypes and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (95% confidence interval, −0.141, p value = 0.002). Conclusion: This study is the first study in Sudan established the association between interleukin-17A-197G/A (rs2275913) polymorphisms and susceptibly to rheumatoid arthritis. These findings appeal for further research in Sudan to investigate the exact role of IL-17A in immunopathology and disease severity among Sudanese rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract Objectives The persistence of high-risk Human Papilloma virus-16 (HPV-16) is considered as a predisposing factor for the development of the cervical carcinoma and the prognosis of the disease. However, other multifactorial risk factors including cell proliferation and apoptosis markers were also studied and linked to the development and progression of cervical carcinoma. This study is aiming at investigating the association between the presence of HPV-16 and the expression of p53 and Bcl-2 in benign and malignant cervical lesions using immunohistochemical staining methods. Results A total of 150 cases with different cervical lesions were studied, their age ranges from 34 to 67 years (mean 49.5 ± 6.9). Out of the 150 cases; 97 (64.7%) were malignant, 37 (24.7%) were pre-cancerous and 16 (10.7%) were benign lesions. The association between the expression of Bcl-2 and p53, the different histopathological diagnosis, and the type of lesion was statistically significant (p value < 0.0001) Furthermore the statistical analysis of Bcl-2 expression revealed a significant correlation with the cancer grade (p value = 0.018). Nevertheless, p53 expression showed no association with the cancer grade. Regarding the correlation between the presence of HPV-16 and the markers the results were found to be statistically significant.