الفهرس 
Title: Study on the potential effects of experimental Blastocystis infection on lactase enzyme activity histopathological, inflammatory and apoptotic changes in intestines of mice
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Abstract
The present study was carried out on 20 laboratory bred male mice in Theodore Bilharz Research Institute to evaluate the influence of Blastocystis infection on lactase enzyme activity in the brush border of the intestine in experimentally infected mice and to detect the possible pathological changes, inflammatory and apoptotic markers provoked by Blastocystis infection. Assessment of lactase enzyme activity by lactase assay colorimetric kit on intestinal tissue and spectrophotometric measurements showed significant reduction of lactase enzyme in Blastocystis infected groups (group II 4.593 ± 0.775 and group IV 2.484± 0.908 with p values < 0.001) compared to the non-infected groups ( group I 8.780 ± 0.263 and group III 13.883 ±6.388 with p values< 0.001).In addition, histopathological examination of small intestinal tissue sections of infected mice showed moderate active inflammation with moderate number of vacuolar forms of Blastocystis while histopathological examination of large intestinal tissue sections showed severe active colitis with large number of vacuolar forms of Blastocystis.Furthermore, Immunohistochemical staining with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-Ü) detected a significant elevation in Blastocystis infected groups compared to non-infected groups. Also, there is a significant elevation of proapoptotic marker BAX protein in Blastocystis infected groups and significant reduction of antiapoptotic BCL-2 in Blastocystis infected groups compared to the non-infected groups