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Background: Trichomoniasis, caused by Trichomonas vaginalis protozoan, may lead to clinical or subclinical urethritis or prostatitis in men. Despite the importance of men in the epidemiology of trichomoniasis, there is little information about this topic. This epidemiological study was performed on men in Hamedan, western Iran. Methods: During Oct 2018 to Mar 2019, 214 male individuals, presenting to the Urology Clinic of Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Hamadan, were enrolled and evaluated for trichomoniasis. First-voided urine specimen was used for detection of T. vaginalis infection using molecular and parasitological methods. Results: Trichomoniasis was detected in 10 of 214 male participants (4.7%, 95% CI: 7.5-1.8%) using PCR assay. Culture and wet mount preparation of urine sediment were unable to isolates any T. vaginalis parasite. Nine of the 10 infected men were married, and six of them were ≥49 yr of age. Urinary frequency and dysuria were the most complaints (80%) among infected individuals. Conclusion: Given the notable prevalence of the infection, the prevalence of male trichomoniasis will be underestimated if only conventional diagnostic methods are used. Therefore, the risk of infection as well as the molecular survey of T. vaginalis infection should be considered in men with or without clinical symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Phenylalanine dehydrogenase (PheDH; EC 1.4.1.20) is a NAD+-dependent enzyme that performs the reversible oxidative deamination of L-phenylalanine to phenylpyruvate. It plays an important role in detection and screening of phenylketonuria (PKU) diseases and production of chiral intermediates as well. The main goal of this study was to find a simple and rapid alternative method for purifying PheDH., Methods: The purification of recombinant Bacillus sphaericus PheDH was investigated in polyethylene glycol (PEG) and ammonium sulfate aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS). The influences of system parameters including PEG molecular weight and concentration, pH and (NH4)2SO4 concentration on enzyme partitioning were also studied. The purity of enzyme was analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis., Results: A single extraction process was developed for separation and purification of recombinant PheDH from E. coli BL21 (DE3). The optimized conditions for partitioning and purification of PheDH were 9% (w/w) PEG-6,000 and 16% (w/w) (NH4)2SO4 at pH 8.0. The partition coefficient, recovery, yield, purification factor and specific activity values were achieved 58.7, 135%, 94.42%, 491.93 and 9828.88 U/mg, respectively. Also, the Km values for L-phenylalanine and NAD+ in oxidative deamination were 0.21 and 0.13 mM, respectively., Conclusion: The data presented in this paper demonstrated the potential of ATPS as a versatile and scaleable process for downstream processing of recombinant PheDH.