No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

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No description available.

No description available.

Leishmaniasis is protozoan diseases, which is transport into the host during the feeding of sand fly. During the feeding of infected sand flies not only the leishmania but also the sand fly saliva are inoculated into the hosts. Sand fly saliva can strongly affect the response of the immune system. If the host hadn't met sand fly saliva yet, the course of infection is usually worse. In cutaneous leishmaniasis, the lesions developed early, being more destructive and perstiting longer, if not healed. The hosts living in endemic areas of leishmaniasis and the vector hosts are often exposed to feeding uninfected sand flies. To hosts are repeatedly inoculated the sand fly saliva antigen and induced specific cellular and antibody responses. Cellular and antibody responses are different for different hosts, attempts were made most frequently in murine and canine models. In humans, as host sis it difficult to monitor development leishamnia infectipon after previous exposure, that's why in humans mainly it is monitors the levels of antibodies, according to which we can determine the extent of sand fly bited and the risk of transmission of leishmaniasis. The specifity of immune responses against sand fly saliva is important for the testing new type of controlling and healing programs against sand fly and...

by Julia Luen-wah Woo. / Thesis (M.Ph.) -- Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves 90-94.

by Yu-Wai Ho. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves 122-129.

c-Met is a tyrosine receptor kinase which is activated by its only ligand, the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). Activation of c-Met leads to a wide spectrum of biological activities such as motility, angiogenesis, morphogenesis, cell survival and cell regeneration. c-Met and HGF knock-out mice are embryonic lethal. During embryogenesis, c-Met is required for liver, kidney and skeletal muscles development. In adult tissues, c-Met is involved in wound healing and hepatocyte regeneration. c-Met is abnormally activated in many tumours types. Aberrant c-Met activation was found to induce tumour development, tumour cell migration and invasion, and the worst and final step in cancer progression, metastasis. In addition, c-Met activation in cells was also shown to confer resistance to apoptosis induced by UV damage or chemotherapeutic drugs. c-Met is thus an attractive target for drug development. This study describes the development of monoclonal antibodies against c-Met as therapeutic molecules in cancer treatment/diagnostics. Antibodies were raised against the a-chain of c-Met. 21 hybridoma clones were single-cell cloned and subjected to preliminary monoclonal antibody characterisation. 11 monoclonal antibodies were finally selected for ascites production and antibody purification. These purified antibodies were characterised by Western blotting, immunofluorescence staining, functional assays (ERK phosphorylation and cell scatter) and for their ability to recognise native c-Met by flow cytometry. Some of the anti-a-chain c-Met antibodies perform better in Western blotting and immunofluorescence staining than the presently-available commercial antibodies. The Mab 2.1 and 13.1 bind strongly to native c-Met in flow cytometry and may be potential candidates for antibody therapy and cancer diagnostics.