---

Aims and Background back: Bacterial cellulose has properties such as higher elasticity, strength and biocompatibility and produced fibers are 100 times smaller than natural cellulose. It is applicable as three dimensional extracellular matrices for holding cells, controlling tissue structure and regulating cell activities.
Materials and Methods: Bacterial cellulose was produced by Acetobacter xylinum ATCC 10245. Then Cellulose scaffold was synthesized and characterized. Microstructures, formed bonds and crystalline structure were analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively.
Results: The fibers were synthesized with diameter of about 30 nm to 360 nm. Different pore sizes of more than one micron were observed. Fiber length was in micron scale. Thus microbial cellulose was quite finer in comparison with natural cellulose. Furthermore, the amount of synthesized bacterial cellulose was in direct relation with area of medium in contact with air.
Conclusion: Considering the results and especially existence of micron scale pores, synthesized bacterial cellulose was quite applicable in tissue engineering.

---

Aim and Background: Amyloids are fibrilar protein structures produced from aggregation of proteins and peptide together. In recent years amyloid fibrils are being noticed as new experimental nanomaterials and from this view the induction of proteins to amyloids could be beneficial. In this study, the fibrillation of bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model protein is optimized.

Materials and Methods:Different pHs of 1, 2, 3, 4.7 and 7.4 of Bovine Serum Albumin were prepared in Mixed Citrate–Phosphate buffer and agitated for 0, 24, 48 and 72 hour in 100 RPM in various temperatures (40–80 ºC) for preparing protein fibrils. Then the amount of amyloid fibrils was detected by spectrophotometric congored binding assay.

Results:In this research, effect of four variables include temperature, pH, time of incubation and protein concentration was investigated on fibrillogenesis and results were confirmed by congored spectrophotometric method as λ_max and absorbance in λ_max (Aλ_max) accompanying with transmission electron microscopy. The optimum condition for fibrillogenesis was specified in 5 mg.ml^-1 of protein and buffer pH of 3 after 72 hour incubation in 70ºC.

Conclusion:Simple congored spectrophotometric method could be used as primary test for evaluating protein nanobiofibrils and absorbance in λ_max is introduced as a valid indicator in this way.

---

Aim and Background:
Recent studies show that the depletion of naturally occurring deuterium can result in tumor regression in both in vitro and in vivo models. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of deuterium depleted water (DDW) discretely and in combination with 5-FU on cell growth and anti-oxidant system of breast cancer cells.
Mateial and Methods:
The cellular cytotoxicity test was performed using MTT assay.  The MCF-7 cells were treated with decreasing deuterium concentrations of DDW alone, 5-FU alone and both. The malondialdehyde (MDA) level and the catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme activities were identified spectrophometrically. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t- test were used for statistical analysis. P ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Treatment the cells with different concentrations of DDW alone especially in concentrations of 100 and 125ppm imposed growth inhibitory effect on MCF-7 cells. Also, 5-FU alone significantly decreased the survival fractions of MCF-7 cells and DDW in combination with 5-FU augmented 5-FU inhibitory effects on the cells. Compared to the control group (150 ppm), it was observed that in the cells treated with Lower concentrations of DDW, the activities of catalase and superoxide dismutase enzymes increased, but the level of malonyldialdehyde decreased.
Conclusion: Deuterium depleted water can be considered as an adjuvant in anticancer drugs.
 

---

Aim and Background: The level of an immune response inhibitory enzyme, called indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), and the activity of Treg cells increase in some patients with cancer and acute leukemias such that it can lead to the inhibition of immune responses. Therefore, the very aim of the present study was to evaluate the regulatory T cells (CD4 + / FOXP3 +) and the level of the IDO expression in acute leukemias using flow cytometry and Real-Time PCR.  Materials and Methods: This study used bone marrow samples taken from  30 patients with acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL), and 20 healthy individuals. Then, the level of the IDO expression and the percentage of Treg cells were evaluated using flow cytometry and Real-Time PCR. The results revealed that the percentage of Treg in the total lymphocytes, T and Th in the ALL group was significantly higher than that of the normal groups the respectively (P <0.001). Results: In addition, the level of the IDO expression in the normal group was significantly lower than that of the ALL group (P= 0.016). Conclusion: The level of the IDO expression in the ALL groups was significantly higher than the normal group. Moreover, there was a positive and non-significant relationship between the level of the IDO expression and the percentages of Treg cells in the ALL group. Therefore, it seems necessary to conduct more studies for the behavior of this leukemia in the expression of IDO enzyme and the percentage of Treg cells and their relationship with each other.