Viviane Mariguela

Objective: Diabetes has a deleterious impact on the periodontal tissues collaborating for disease progression. Gene expression analysis of progressive sites might show differences in the host’s response and indicate key regulators related to tissue destruction. The aim of this study was to investigate the inflammatory genes profile of progressive sites from patients with chronic periodontitis, with or without type 2 diabetes. Method: Twenty-one patients were enrolled: ten with periodontitis (PD group) and eleven with periodontitis and diabetes (PD+DM group). Clinical measurements – probing pocket depth (PPD), relative clinical attachment level (rCAL), bleeding on probing (BOP) and plaque index (PI) – were performed before and two months after non-surgical periodontal therapy with a computerized periodontal probe. Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) was measured in the diabetic patients. Gingival biopsies from the sites with progressive attachment loss at the recall visit were harvested for ...

Objective: The pathogenesis of periodontal disease although widely studied presents controversial points. Thus the aim of this study was to analyze the dynamics of the inflammatory genes expression related to the tissue destruction and attachment loss in a periodontitis experimental model. Method: Fifteen male Wistar rats had the first mandibular molar ligated to induce periodontitis. The animals were killed in different time points and divided into five groups: day one (D1), day three (D3), day five (D5), day seven (D7) and control group (without ligature). Three gingival biopsies from each group were harvested for the expression analysis of the inflammatory genes (IL1β, IL12, IL4, COX2, MMP8, MMP9 and IL17) by Real Time PCR. The differences among groups were verified with ANOVA and Tukey´s test (p<0.05). Result: We observed a higher expression of IL1β in D1 (p<0.01) with a decrease in D3 (p<0.01), D5 (p<0.01) and D7 (p<0.01). The expression of IL4 and IL12 were down...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a genus in the family Herpesviridae that has been associated with gastrointestinal syndromes. In this work we looked for a possible association of CMV infection with colorectal cancer and ulcerative colitis (UC). Blood and enteric tissue samples of 14 patients with colorectal cancer and of 21 with UC were subjected to a nested-PCR that amplifies part of the gB gene of CMV and also to immunohistochemistry using a specific monoclonal antibody to IE 76 kDa protein of CMV. CMV was detected by nested-PCR in the blood and/or the enteric tissue of nine (64.3%) colorectal cancer and 16 (76.2%) ulcerative colitis patients. In the immunohistochemistry it was observed that 12 (12/21, 57.1%) positive enteric tissue samples of patients with UC and none from patients with colorectal cancer (0/14) were positive to CMV. The positivity of CMV infections in the UC patient group (12/21, 57.1%) showed by both techniques, was significantly higher (p = 0.015) than that observed f...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) remains an important pathogen to immunocompromised patients even in the era of HAART. The present study aimed at evaluating the influence of CMV viral load and its gB genotypes on AIDS patients' outcome. Blood samples of 101 AIDS patients were collected and tested for HIV load, CD4 - cell count and opportunistic pathogens, including CMV. Semi-nested PCRs were run to detect CMV genome and in the positive samples, gB genotyping and CMV load were established using enzymatic restriction and real time PCR, respectively. All patients were clinically followed for four years. In thirty patients (31%) CMV was detected and all fatal cases (n = 5) occurred in this group of patients (p = 0.007), but only two patients had CMV disease (1.9%). However, viral load was not statistically associated with any analyzed parameter. The most frequently observed CMV genotype was gB2 (45.16%) followed by gB3 (35.48%). gB2 genotype was more frequently found in patients with CD4-cell ...