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Background: Immune deficiency is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the modern world. Primary immunodeficiency comprises a wide range of disorders that mainly manifest in early childhood as devastating infections with opportunistic organisms. Thymic aplasia is found on autopsy of some patients afflicted with immune deficiency disorders, such as DiGeorge syndrome and severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). After a thorough search of the literature, we found little information on the cellular characteristics of these thymuses. Our study aims to elucidate role of apoptosis in the pathogenesis of thymic aplasia and compare various lymphocytic and epithelial markers in normal and aplastic thymuses. Methods: We selected 12 subjects who died of severe infections with aplastic thymus found on autopsy, and 11 control subjects who died of unrelated causes, such as congenital heart disease. The presence of several markers, including Bcl2, P53, lymphocytic markers, and CD68, was examined using immunohistochemical methods on paraffin-embedded thymus sections. Positively-stained cells were counted per 1000 cells and the results stated as percentage of positive cells. Results: The mean age of the control group was between 7 days to 18 months (mean: 4.5 months). Parental consanguinity was present in 45.5% and 9.1% of the control and case groups, respectively; however, this was not statistically significant. We found significantly lower expression of Bcl2 in the case group (p value: 0.038). Furthermore, expression of CD68 was significantly higher in the case group. Epithelial markers were significantly higher in case subjects, although CD8 expression was higher in the control group. The presence of other markers was not significantly different between the two groups.Conclusions: Increase in apoptosis has a role in aplastic thymuses and prevention of apoptosis may halt this process. Also high CD68 expression denotes increased phagocytic activity in aplastic thymuses.

Correcting a valuable manuscript and annotating and glossing a book remained from the past not only reinforce the ethnic and national heritage of a country and provides extensive information about manner, thinking and intellectual and linguistic structure of past thinkers and scientists, but also is an original research which has been acknowledged by literary critics. The manuscript of Kashef al-Moshkelat by Baha al-Din Abubakr Ibn Kalnajar Shirazi has remained from seventh and eighth centuries (A.H) of which only one unique copy handwritten by the author is available. According to the text of this work and also acknowledged by the biographies written in his own time, the author of this book has had a prominent mystical and scientific status and composed this book in order to solve the difficulties of prevalent sciences in his own time and due to the request of his time's learned men. This work, which has been written with a plain and vivid scientific language decorated with stylistic and rhetorical figures in the form of short sentences, consists of various chapters about interpretation of verses and hadiths, medicine, philosophical and religious difficulties, the author's recommendations besides mystical expressions and the author's revelations. This book has three major sections each of which has several subsections and each subsections includes various epistles totally consisted of 349 epistles. Providing some descriptions about the life of the author and investigating this book and its content, the article aims to explore the structure, style and linguistic characteristics of this book based on extracted evidence and also investigate it form aesthetic and literary aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]