Background: Due to the lack of efficient anti-HIV vaccine, anti-HIV pharmaceuticals play an important role in controlling HIV infection. Also significant rise in drug resistance and drug toxicity has caused increased interest in finding new anti-HIV agents. In this study, a nano-sized version of lamivudine based on PEGylated chitosan was synthesized.

  Materials and Methods: In this research, nanoparticles of chitosan were efficiently PEGylated for increasing their stability in water and then the anti-HIV drug, lamivudine, was loaded on these PEGylated nanoparticles. After purification and lyophilization of new synthesized nanoparticle, the raw materials and final product were sampled and FTIR, HNMR and CHN analyses were done.

  Results: Results of HNMR spectroscopy showed that chitosan nanoparticle was successfully PEGylated. HNMR data confirmed FTIR results and indicated that lamivudine was conjugated on chitosan nanoparticle. In addition, CHN analysis data also confirmed both HNMR and FTIR data, and demonstrated that a high yield of chitosan nanoparticle PEGylation (approximately 97%) was done and illustrated a high capacity of lamivudine conjugation on nano-sized PEGylated chitosan (30% _W/W chitosan).

  Conclusion: In this study, lamivudine drug was successfully synthesized, based on PEGylated chitosan nanoparticle.

Background: Schizophrenia is a widespread neurodegenerative disorder, which affects approximately 1% of the world population. It is a multifactorial and a highly heritable disease to which genetic factors contribute up to approximately 80%. Nowadays, multitude of genes have been discovered that relate to this disorder mostly by affecting the performance and levels of neurotransmitters in neural systems. Since PAI-1 is a considerable gene in the performance of neural systems, the present study dealt with the relationship between -675 4G/5G polymorphism in PAI-1 gene and schizophrenia among Iranian patients.

Materials and  Methods: This case-control study was carried out on 106 blood samples collected from individuals suffering from schizophrenia and 122 healthy controls. DNA was extracted from the samples and the frequency of the polymorphisms was analyzed using ARMS-PCR method. Finally, the products were detected on 2% agarose gel electrophoresis.

Results: The analysis of the data for -675 4G/5G polymorphism showed that 17.9% of the patients and 1.6% of the controls were mutant homozygous and 65.1% of the patients and 45.9% of controls were heterozygous. Also, 17% of the patients and 52.5% of the controls were normal homozygous.

Conclusion: There was a significant relationship between PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphism and the incidence of schizophrenia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Iran that assesses the frequency of the polymorphism among Iranian patients. However, further studies with more samples are necessary.