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Methylation of DNA is one of the important regulatory mechanisms of gene transcription. B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia/lymphoma 11B(BCL11B) plays a key role in the development, proliferation, differentiation, and survival of T cells. The aim of this study was to evaluate promoter methylation of BCL11Bgene and its mRNA level in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients in relation to healthy controls and evaluate their correlation with diseases clinical indices. Fifty AS patients and 50 healthy controls entered in this study. PBMCs were isolated from whole blood and RNA and DNA contents of leukocytes were extracted. The expression level of BCL11Bgene was measured through real-time PCR assay using SYBR Green Master Mix, and PCR products of bisulfite-treated DNA were sequenced to determine the methylation level of promoter. Decreased transcript and increased promoter methylation levels of BCL11Bgene were identified in AS patients compared with healthy controls. Hypermethylation of CpG3 and CpG5 was associated with increased AS risk. Promoter hypermethylation and mRNA overexpression correlated with each other but not with clinical manifestations. We identified aberrancies in expression and methylation of BCL11Bgene in AS patients compared with healthy control group; however, they might not impress the clinical face of AS.

Constrained ironing is a new ironing technique with extra high thickness reduction for producing thin-walled cylindrical cups. In this study, the effects of constrained ironing process parameters such as die angle, thickness reduction ratio and friction coefficient were investigated using experimental and finite element (FE) methods. Also, the stress state in the deformation zone in the conventional and constrained ironing process was examined by FE simulation. The FEM results showed that increase in the ironing die angle caused to decrease the punch load. Also, the state of the stress was fully compressive in constrained ironing process while it was tensile in the conventional ironing method. The results showed that after the introduction of this new method, the hardness increased to about 85 Hv from the initial values of 25 HV.