Background & Objectives : Breast cancer is among the most frequent disorders among the world. BRCA1 gene was known as a tumor suppressor gene which its loss could be resulted in various destructions in genome. Therefore, changes occurred in its expression level could lead to increasing the effects of oncogene activity on breast cells.

  Methods : RT-PCR and Q-RT-PCR were used for detecting BRCA1 expression status among 27 primary affected breast cancer patients. The association between its expression status and histopathologic data had been evaluated by statistical assays.

  Results: Eighty-five percent of patients showed BRCA1 expression and this expression as well as its quantity had significant associations with tumor grade. It was found that tumors with low levels of BRCA1 expression tend to have higher grades.

  Conclusion : BRCA1 has an important role in suppressing breast tumorogenesis. Corresponding to some of the previous reports, our findings revealed the role of decreasing in BRCA1 expression level as one of the factors which allows tumors to progress.

  Background & Objectives: In endemic area, chemically fighting with carrier of kala azar disease is one of the main ways for reducing disease, and ficam is one of the toxins that is appropriate to eliminate mosquitoes and is from health poison among the pesticides. Therefore, by considering the lasting in nature, using ficam can greatly destroy disease-carrying mosquitoes.

  Methods: In this cross - sectional study the rate of effect ficam on different vectors species were examined in Meshkinshahr city. First two infected villages, as cases and controls, and 10 households from each village selected and 1000 m² from the case village was spraying with ficam than 0.3 g /m². Then, using sticky traps set in the distances were attempted to identify species and Fon (per 2 villages).

  Results: In the rate of 524 sand fly predating in this study included 70.5% Phlebotomus Kandelakii, 5% F. Papatasi, 7.5% F. Major, 7.5% F. Balcanicus, 9.5% F. longidoctus. In the case village was spraying and , respectively, 3-15 - 30 - 45-60 -75 and 90 days after spraying at about 79.5% - 69.5% - 83% - 90% - 93% - 100% and 100 % sand fly vanished.

  Conclusion: According to this study can be said that ficam poison with the survival of three months in nature and with average of lethality coverage of appropriate terms of season to prevent from disease Kla-azar and eliminate sand flies and as a poison, appropriate of health before starts up the season of carriers activity. And ficam poison can be used in the whole of region and country.

Background & objectives: Visceral leishmaniasis is a zoonotic disease and is considered as the most important disease in dogs. The disease has been reported in North West and South of the country, in Iran. In addition to stray dogs, some apparently healthy dogs can be contaminated without showing any sign or symptoms in this area. In the present study, canine visceral leishmaniasis was investigated in dogs lacking clinical signs in Meshkinshahr city in Ardabil, Iran.

Methods: This study was a cross-sectional survey conducted during 2011-2014. A total of 110 serum samples collected from dogs either having or lacking clinical signs and tested by direct agglutination test (DAT) assay. Then 10 dogs (41.6%) showing clinical signs and 15 dogs (17.4%) without any symptoms were autopsied and their spleens were sampled. The samples were used for smear preparation and culturing.

Results: Based on the results, among 24 dogs with clinical signs 20 cases (83.3%) and of 86 dogs without signs, 16 cases (18.6%) found to be positive. On the other hand, smear and culture results were found to be positive in 100% and 60% of dogs with and without clinical signs, respectively. The interesting and impressive results of this study was that the dogs with symptoms but negative DAT and asymptomatic dogs with negative DAT were positive in parasitological tests.

Conclusion: This proves that asymptomatic dogs like symptomatic dogs can be effective in L. infantum infection and is able to maintain the transmission of the disease in endemic areas. On the other hand, a number of symptomatic dogs with negative anti-leishmania antibodies were positive in parasitological tests. Thus, this study also shows that although DAT is effective in determining asymptomatic dogs and canine visceral leishmaniosis control programs but it does not seem to be satisfying in endemic areas such as Meshkin-shahr. Thus in endemic areas, it is recommended that the low antibody titer should be considered.