Introduction: Group B Streptococcus (GBS), infection and recurrence in newborns and pregnant women can lead to chronic medical illness resulting in significant morbidity, and mortality. Pathogenesis of GBS may be due to reasons such as activation of the immune system, followed by the production of inflammatory markers and toxic components by immune cells including macrophages. Methods: The studies on invasive and colonizing GBS strains inoculated either with peripheral or brain macrophages, the expression of nitric oxide (NO), cell viability, and CD40 were also measured by Griess assay, methyl tetrazolium assay (MTT), and flow cytometry, respectively. Furthermore, the clinical manifestations of the selected patients were also assessed for this study. Results: Outcome of inflammatory markers studies, after GBS inoculation indicated that, invasive GBS strains induced higher inflammatory markers in comparison to colonizing GBS strains. Furthermore, patients’ clinical data showed that patients with invasive GBS infections had severe condition unlike among patients with colonizing GBS strains. The fatality rate in patients with invasive GBS strain were 30.8% while there was no death among carriers. Conclusion: This study, aimed to understand the immune response to GBS, and strengthen the knowledge on GBS pathogenesis. It was concluded that invasive GBS strains not only showed higher expression of inflammatory markers on immune cells but also had higher pathogenesis effect in comparison to colonizing GBS strains.
Streptococcus agalactiae ; Pregnancy

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) contains several molecules which are essential for neurogenesis. Human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) are putatively neural crest cell-derived that can differentiate into neurons and glial cells under appropriate neurotrophic factors. The aim of this study was to induce differentiation of hDPSCs into neuroglial phenotypes using retinoic acid (RA) and CSF. The hDPSCs from an impacted third molar were isolated by mechanical and digestion and cultured. The cells have treated by 10⁻⁷µM RA (RA group) for 8 days, 10% CSF (CSF group) for 8 days and RA with CSF for 8 days (RA/CSF group). Nestin, microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), and glial fibrillary acidic protein immunostaining were used to examine the differentiated cells. Axonal outgrowth was detected using Bielschowsky's silver impregnation method and Nissl bodies were stained in differentiated cells by Cresyl violet. The morphology of differentiated cells in treated groups was significantly changed after 3–5 days. The results of immunocytochemistry showed the presence of neuroprogenitor marker nestin was seen in all groups. However, the high percentage of nestin positive cells and MAP2, as mature neural markers, were observed at the pre-induction and induction stage, respectively. Nissl bodies were detected as dark-blue particles in the cytoplasm of treated cells. Our findings showed the RA as pre-inducer and CSF as inducer for using in vitro differentiation of neuron-like cells and neuroglial cells from hDPSCs.
Axons ; Cerebrospinal Fluid* ; Cytoplasm ; Dental Pulp* ; Digestion ; Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein ; Humans* ; Immunohistochemistry ; In Vitro Techniques ; Methods ; Microtubule-Associated Proteins ; Molar, Third ; Nerve Growth Factors ; Nestin ; Neural Crest ; Neurogenesis ; Neuroglia* ; Neurons ; Nissl Bodies ; Phenotype ; Silver ; Stem Cells* ; Tretinoin* ; Viola

OBJECTIVE: Migraine headache is a chronic and disabling condition in adults. Some studies have investigated the efficacy of sodium valproate in the treatment of acute migraine, but the effectiveness and tolerability of intravenous valproate as abortive therapy remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of sodium valproate and dexamethasone in the treatment of acute migraine. METHODS: We conducted a double-blind randomized clinical trial including 90 patients aged 18 to 65 years with acute migraine headache but no aura. Patients were randomized to receive intravenous dexamethasone (8 mg) or sodium valproate (400 mg) diluted into 4 mL of normal saline. The primary outcome measure was pain relief after 0.5, 1, 3, or 6 hours after administration. The secondary outcome criteria were the associated symptom recovery, rate of headache recurrence after 24 hours, and medication side effects. Pearson’s chi square and the t-test were employed in the data analysis. RESULTS: Of the 90 patients, 80 were investigated. The percentage of headache improvement at 0.5 hours after treatment was 55% and 67.5% in the sodium valproate and dexamethasone groups, respectively. Before-treatment and 0.5 hour after treatment pain severity visual analog scale scores were 9.05±0.90 and 3.8±3.09 in the sodium valproate group and 8.92±0.79 and 3.10±2.73 in the dexamethasone group, respectively. There were no significant intergroup differences. CONCLUSION: This randomized clinical trial showed that the intravenous injection of sodium valproate 400 mg has similar effects to those of dexamethasone for improving acute migraine headache.
Adult ; Dexamethasone* ; Epilepsy ; Headache ; Humans ; Injections, Intravenous ; Migraine Disorders* ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) ; Recurrence ; Sodium* ; Statistics as Topic ; Valproic Acid* ; Visual Analog Scale