The production of anti-PF4 antibodies in anti-phospholipid antibody-positive patients is not affected by COVID-19 vaccination

Antibodies against cationic platelet chemokine, platelet factor 4 (PF4/CXCL4) have been described in heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) but also in patients positive for anti-phospholipid antibodies (aPL) even in the absence of heparin treatment and HIT-related clinical manifestations. Anti-PF4 antibodies have been recently described also in subjects who developed thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) in association with adenoviral vector-based, but not with mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. We investigated whether COVID-19 vaccination affects the production of anti-PF4 immunoglobulins detectable by solid-phase assay in aPL-positive patients and their ability to induce in vitro platelet activation. Anti-PF4 were found in 9/126 aPL-positive patients, 4/50 COVID-19, 9/49 other infections, and 1/50 aPL-negative systemic lupus erythematosus patients. Clinical manifestations of TTS were not observed in any aPL patient positive for anti-PF4, whose sera failed to cause platelet aggregations. The administration of COVID-19 vaccines did not affect the production of anti-PF4 immunoglobulins or their ability to cause platelet aggregation in 44 aPL-positive patients tested before and after vaccination. In conclusion, heparin treatment-independent anti-PF4 antibodies can be found in aPL-positive patients and asymptomatic carriers, but their presence, titer as well as in vitro effect on platelet activation are not affected by COVID-19 vaccination.

INFLUENCE OF FLURIDONE ON THE CONTENT OF HORMONES IN CALL OF BARLEY CV. STEPTOE AND TS ABA‑DEFICIENT MUTANT AZ34

The effect of the inhibitor of endogenous ABA synthesis fluridone on the content and distribution of endogenous ABA and IAA in the calli of ABA-deficient mutant AZ34 barley and its parental cultivar Steptoe was studied using the methods of immuno-enzymatic solid-phase assay and immunolocalization of phytohormones. It was found that by the 4th week of in vitro culture, fluridone causes a significant decrease in the ABA level in calli of both genotypes compared to the control, and the inhibitory effect of fluridone in AZ34 is more pronounced than in Steptoe. In the calli of both genotypes, a significant increase in the IAA content was revealed against the background of a decrease in the ABA content upon treatment with fluridone as compared to the control. It was concluded that ABA plays an important role in the process of embryoido-genesis in vitro.

Bioluminescent Binding Microassay Using Aptamers as Biospecific Elements

High specificity is an important requirement for an analytical system aimed at identifying a specific molecular target. Traditionally, antibodies, haptens and some other molecules are used for this purpose. Recently, aptamers were proposed as biospecific elements. Aptamers are short single-stranded oligonucleotides with a unique spatial structure that enables them to recognize target molecules and bind to them. Aptamers are obtained from synthetic random DNA(RNA)-libraries, a pool of oligonucleotides of the same length with different base sequences (1014-1015 variants), by selecting the oligonucleotides that are capable of specific binding to a given target. Aptamers are stable molecules with high affinity and specificity; they can be developed for any target, including toxic and nonimmunogenic ones; and they can be easily synthesized chemically. Due to these useful qualities, aptamers are often considered to be an alternative to antibodies. This paper describes the use of aptamer sensors and a highly sensitive bioluminescent reporter, the Ca2+-regulated photoprotein obelin, for the detection of diagnostically important targets in the blood of patients. Additionally, obelin was successfully applied as a reporter in the process of obtaining aptamers. A proposed bioluminescent solid-phase assay enables the enrichment of the oligonucleotide library with target-specific oligonucleotides to be monitored rapidly, the affinity of individual aptamers and their shortened variants to be evaluated and the relative position of the aptamers on the target molecule to be determined. The results of the studies reviewed in this paper open promising avenues for developing analytical systems that include highly specific aptamer sensing, as well as highly sensitive detection based on bioluminescent reporter proteins