Khalequz Zaman, Eliza Roy, Shams El Arifeen, Mahbubur Rahman et al.
BACKGROUND: Young infants and pregnant women are at increased risk for serious consequences of influenza infection. Inactivated influenza vaccine is recommended for pregnant women but is not licensed for infants younger than 6 months of age. We assessed the clinical effectiveness of inactivated infl...
M. Nazmul Huda, Zachery T. Lewis, Karen M. Kalanetra, Mamunur Rashid et al.
OBJECTIVE: Oral vaccine efficacy is low in less-developed countries, perhaps due to intestinal dysbiosis. This study determined if stool microbiota composition predicted infant oral and parenteral vaccine responses. METHODS: The stool microbiota of 48 Bangladeshi infants was characterized at 6, 11, ...
Audrie Lin, Benjamin F. Arnold, Sadia Afreen, Rie Goto et al.
We assessed the relationship of fecal environmental contamination and environmental enteropathy. We compared markers of environmental enteropathy, parasite burden, and growth in 119 Bangladeshi children (≤ 48 months of age) across rural Bangladesh living in different levels of household environmenta...
Catharina Boehme, Pamela Nabeta, Germán Henostroza, Rubhana Raqib et al.
The characteristics of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) make it a promising platform for the molecular detection of tuberculosis (TB) in developing countries. Here, we report on the first clinical evaluation of LAMP for the detection of pulmonary TB in microscopy centers in Peru, Bangla...
Rubhana Raqib, Protim Sarker, Peter Bergman, Gul Ara et al.
Shigella is a major cause of morbidity, mortality, and growth retardation for children in developing countries. Emergence of antibiotic resistance among Shigellae demands the development of effective medicines. Previous studies found that the endogenous antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is down-regulated ...
Sultan Ahmed, Sultana Mahabbat-e Khoda, Rokeya Sultana Rekha, Renee M. Gardner et al.
BACKGROUND: Arsenic (As) exposure during pregnancy induces oxidative stress and increases the risk of fetal loss and low birth weight. OBJECTIVES: In this study we aimed to elucidate the effects of As exposure on immune markers in the placenta and cord blood, and the involvement of oxidative stress....
Maria Kippler, A.M. Waheedul Hoque, Rubhana Raqib, Helena Öhrvik et al.
Cadmium (Cd) is a widespread, highly toxic environmental pollutant known to accumulate in human placenta. The aim of the present study was to elucidate to what extent the accumulation of Cd in human placenta interacts with the transport of micronutrients to the fetus. Cd and micronutrients were meas...
Rubhana Raqib, Sultan Ahmed, Rokeya Sultana, Yukiko Wagatsuma et al.
Chronic exposure to arsenic, a potent carcinogen and toxicant, via drinking water is a worldwide public health problem. Because little is known about early-life effects of arsenic on immunity, we evaluated the impact of in utero exposure on infant immune parameters and morbidity in a pilot study. Pr...
Elizabeth P. Schlaudecker, Mark C. Steinhoff, Saad B. Omer, Monica McNeal et al.
BACKGROUND: Antenatal immunization of mothers with influenza vaccine increases serum antibodies and reduces the rates of influenza illness in mothers and their infants. We report the effect of antenatal immunization on the levels of specific anti-influenza IgA levels in human breast milk. (ClinicalT...
Maria Kippler, Karin Engström, Simona Jurković Mlakar, Matteo Bottai et al.
Dietary cadmium exposure was recently found to alter DNA methylation in adults, but data on effects early in life are lacking. Our objective was to evaluate associations between prenatal cadmium exposure, DNA methylation and birth weight. In total 127 mother-child pairs from rural Bangladesh were st...
Mark C. Steinhoff, Saad B. Omer, Eliza Roy, Shams El Arifeen et al.
BACKGROUND: There are limited data about the effect of maternal influenza infection on fetuses and newborns. We performed a secondary analysis of data from the Mother's Gift project, a randomized study designed to test the effectiveness of inactivated influenza and pneumococcal vaccines during pregn...
Mark C. Steinhoff, Saad B. Omer, Eliza Roy, Shams El Arifeen et al.
The authors present antibody data for mothers and infants from a trial of influenza vaccine in pregnant women. The observations suggest that maternal immunization results in the presence of antibod...
Karin Engström, Marie Vahter, Simona Jurković Mlakar, Gabriela Concha et al.
BACKGROUND: Arsenic (As) occurs as monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) in humans, and the methylation pattern demonstrates large interindividual differences. The fraction of urinary MMA is a marker for susceptibility to As-related diseases. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the impact...
Rokeya Sultana Rekha, Ssv Jagadeeswara Rao Muvva, Min Wan, Rubhana Raqib et al.
LL-37 is a human antimicrobial peptide (AMP) of the cathelicidin family with multiple activities including a mediator of vitamin D-induced autophagy in human macrophages, resulting in intracellular killing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). In a previous trial in healthy volunteers, we have shown ...
Akhirunnesa Mily, Rokeya Sultana Rekha, S. M. Mostafa Kamal, Abu Saleh Mohammad Arifuzzaman et al.
BACKGROUND: Development of new tuberculosis (TB) drugs and alternative treatment strategies are urgently required to control the global spread of TB. Previous results have shown that vitamin D3 (vitD3) and 4-phenyl butyrate (PBA) are potent inducers of the host defense peptide LL-37 that possess ant...