Infection of the gastric mucosa with Helicobacter pylori is strongly associated with chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori virulence factors include a variety of proteins that are involved in its pathogenesis, such as VacA and CagA. Another group of virulence factors is clearly important for colonization of H.pylori in the gastric mucosa. These include urease, motility factors (flagellin), and Superoxide dismutase (SOD). Because of this organism's microaerophilic nature and the increased levels of reactive oxygen in the infected host, we expect that other factors involved in the response to oxidative stress are likely to be required for virulence. Superoxide dismutase is a nearly ubiquitous enzyme among organisms that are exposed to toxic environments. In this study, we measured the SOD in serum of 80 patients complain from chronic gastritis and infected with H.pylori. 37 patients infected with H.pylori have the CagA gene, and 13 patients are not and also measured the SOD in 30 control groups that not infected with H.pylori. Serum level of SOD was significantly (p<0.05) higher in patients with chronic gastritis compared to controls. Also significantly higher (p<0.001) in patients with chronic gastritis infected with H.pylori positive CagA than patients infected with H.pylori negative CagA. Key words: chronic gastritis, H.pylori, CagA, SOD الخلاصــة

Fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is a standard procedure for the detection of thyroid nodules malignancy, yet 10-25% of the sample diagnosed may go undetermined or suspicious. The utility of cancer stem cell markers (CSCM) as a differential diagnosis molecular marker in nodules of suspicious decision in FNAB was hypothesized. Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and thyroid fibroadenoma (TFA) samples were selected to test the hypothesis. The samples employed in this study were from patients who had thyroid hyperplasia and a suspicious or undetermined diagnosis by FNAB. The patient underwent a successful thyroidectomy at Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital in Baghdad between January 2015 and December 2017. All nodule samples underwent a systematic histopathological examination after resection. Tumors diagnosed as PTC and those diagnosed as fibroadenoma (TFA) were selected for this study. Collectively 39 PTC and 11 TFA nodules were included. Quantitative reverse transcriptase real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) were used to determine levels of mRNA and proteins of CSCM ALDH1A1, CD44, ABCG2, and Oct3/4 in both types of tumors were used. This study revealed that the expression levels of CSCM were significantly increased in PTC tissues when compared to benign tissues and the positive correlation was found between the CSCM expression levels and tumor stage, size, and gender. In conclusion, for a more precise diagnosis, we suggest these markers be included in what is currently available to characterize malignancy from what is not in thyroid cancer, as well as for the staging process of PTC.

The presence of cancer stem cells as a subpopulation residing in the apex of solid tumor cell hierarchy has been introduced as a new hypothesis capable of describing the ability of tumors to be more aggressive, highly metastasized, and chemo-radiotherapy resistant. The origin of these cells is still controversial: one hypothesis describes the stress conditions in the tumor microenvironment as one of the driving forces behind the existence of these cells. In this study, we test if nutrition depletion conditions (deprivation of serum and glucose) would be one of such forces. Esophagus adenocarcinoma cell line SKGT-4 was exposed to starvation by depleting glucose and fetal bovine serum from growth media at different times. The viability of the cells during this condition was determined by standard MTT assay and the cells' morphological changes were observed by crystal violet staining and trypan blue staining. The expression levels of stress-related proteins, heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) and heat shock protein 70 (HSP70), as well as some known cancer stem cell markers, CD44, ALDH1A1, and ABCG2, were determined using quantitative real-time PCR. Levels of necrosis and apoptosis were followed in cell populations under stress using a mixture of fluorescence staining and observation under a fluorescence microscope. The results indicated a loss of cell viability during the extended times of incubation in starved condition compared with the non-starved condition. Cells under starvation suffered from noticeable morphological changes combined with widespread necrosis and apoptosis. Levels of HSP90, HSP70, and cancer stem cell marker expression were significantly increased in starved condition compared with non-starved condition (p ≤ 0.01). In conclusion, although starvation as a result of serum and glucose depletion leads to induced necrosis and/or apoptosis in most of the cells, it may induce stress-resistant mechanisms in cells that remain viable (stress-resistant cells).

In the brain, there are hundreds of types of specialized neurons and to generate one type of them we need to have neural progenitors for differentiation to specific neuron type. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are easily isolated, cultured, manipulated ex vivo, showing great potential for therapeutic applications. The adult MSCs have the potential to produce progeny that differentiate into a variety of cell types such as neurons. This fact suggests that MSCs derived neurons are an important cell type and a deep understanding of the molecular characteristics of it would significantly enhance the advancement of cell therapy for neurological disorders. Therefore, in this study, we isolated, identified, and studied neural progenitors by measuring expression levels through neurogenesis pathway of three neural differentiation markers nestin (NES), neurofilament (NF-L), and microtubule association protein (MAP-2) from mouse bone marrow MSCs (mouse bmMSCs) by using butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and diethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as neural inducers agents. The results of immunocytochemistry and Real Time-PCR showed that in contrast to MSCs, neural differentiated cells showed neural progenitor pattern by showing stable increase in NES gene expression through differentiation process with increasing the protein expression through different exposures times, while NF-L gene and protein expression start to increased after 48 h but not replaced the NES expression completely even when its expression passed NES levels. The maturation marker Map-2 expression was low during the duration of differentiation period in protein and gene expression, which prove that these cells are still progenitors and can be redirected into specific type of neurons by further treatments. * Corresponding authors. M. Mohammad et al.2

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer and cause of death among women worldwide. ABCG2 (ATP–binding cassette sub-family G member 2) is an ABC transporter superfamily and endogenous expression of ABCG2 in different certain cancer reflect intrinsic drug resistance. It is also a molecular determinant of pharmacokinetic properties of many drugs in humans. In this study, we determined the expression levels of ABCG2 in breast tissues of Iraqi women with stage II and III breast cancer. The correlation between the expression levels of ABCG2 and clinicopathological features was analyzed. Methods: The expression levels of ABCG2 in the breast was determined by using real- time PCR and immunohistochemistry in 64 patients with stage II and III samples and in 21 benign tumors from Iraqi women. Results: We found that the expression level of ABCG2 mRNA were significantly increased in breast cancer stage II-III tissues than those in benign tumor tissues. There was a significant variation between the mRNA levels of ABCG2 in stage II and stage III at P< 0.05. Immunohistochemistry revealed that the protein expression levels of ABCG2, was also increased in 83% of patients with stage II and III breast cancer as compared to 17% in benign tumor. The increased expression levels of ABCG2, in stage II-III breast cancer were correlated to tumor stages (P=0.03), tumor grades (P=0.01), tumor types (P=0.01) and lymph node metastasis (p=0.0001), respectively. Conclusion: ABCG2 expression level in Iraqi women with stage II and III breast cancer were highly correlated with tumor stages, grades, types and metastasis and they could be used a potential markers which can prediction tumor behavior, progression and prognosis. Over expression of ABCG2 protein lead to treatment failure, tumor relapse and tumor metastasis by induction cancer cells against cytotoxic drugs.