Muhammad Shahid

University of the Punjab | PU · Centre for Excellence in Molecular Biology

In certain low-income nations, the hepatitis Delta virus and hepatitis B virus (HBV) pose a serious medical burden, where the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is greater than 8%. Especially in rural places, irregular diagnostic exams are the main restriction and reason for underestimation. Utilizing serum samples from a Pakistani i...

Background: Cancer, characterized by the rapid and abnormal growth of cells affecting any part of the body, stands as the leading cause of death worldwide. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has garnered significant attention as a non-invasive liquid biopsy approach for disease detection, therapy evaluation, and prognosis. This review aims to provide a comprehe...

Authors' Contribution MS, IA, SA and MI planned and worked on the study. RN, MUK and FAB helped in writing manuscript. AR did the statistical analysis. The chronic hepatitis C (CHC) virus plays a vital role around the globe in hepatic persistent disease. It is undoubtedly a major health and financial burden in Pakistan, affecting about 6 to 10 perc...

Background The corona virus SARS-CoV-2 is the causative agent of recent most global pandemic. Its genome encodes various proteins categorized as non-structural, accessory, and structural proteins. The non-structural proteins, NSP1–16, are located within the ORF1ab. The NSP3, 4, and 6 together are involved in formation of double membrane vesicle (DM...

Background: In 2019, the world witnessed an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, whose retention for two months or more leads to long COVID. Several long-term staying viruses cause oncogenesis. We intended to find any such potential with SARS-CoV-2. A rigorous systematic analysis of viral oncogenic pathways and long COVID was conducted. SARS-CoV-2 affects gluta...

COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is a highly contagious disease that has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, leading to widespread impacts. Objective: To investigate the potential relationship between ABO blood groups and susceptibility to the coronavirus. Methods: This study was conducted at The University of...

Background: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a global pandemic in recent times. SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped beta-coronavirus. Epitope prediction against viruses for subunit vaccine development using immunoinformatic approaches is becoming a common practice. Currently available vaccines are designed against ent...

Background: Antibiotic misuse and overuse have contributed to the emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria (MDR), a serious public health problem across the globe. Phage cocktails, which combine several phages to destroy various bacterial strains, offer a more thorough and efficient method of battling MDR illnesses. This might revolutionize the...

Background: Antibiotic misuse and overuse have contributed to the emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria (MDR), a serious public health problem across the globe. Phage cocktails, which combine several phages to destroy various bacterial strains, offer a more thorough and efficient method of battling MDR illnesses. This might revolutionize the...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a global pandemic. There are four structural proteins of the virus: spike, envelope, membrane, and nucleocapsid proteins. Various vaccines were designed and are effectively being used against the spike protein of the virus. However, several vaccine-related complications have be...

Background Hepatitis C virus, a member of Flaviviridae is a single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus infecting 62–79 million people around the globe. This blood-borne virus is one of the leading causes of liver diseases worldwide. This review aims to identify novel potential genes linked to cellular host factors, as well as revise the roles of each...

Since the isolation of adenovirus (AdV) in 1953, AdVs have been used as vectors for various therapeutic purposes, such as gene therapy in cancers and other malignancies, vaccine development and delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 machinery. Over the years, several AdV vector modifications have been introduced, including fiber switching, incorporation of ligand...

Introduction The significant increase in the emergence of notable zoonotic viruses in the previous decades has become a serious concern to global public health. 99% of infectious diseases have originated from zoonotic viruses with immense potential for dissemination infecting the susceptible population completely lacking herd immunity. Areas Cover...

Objective: To determine prevalence and factors associated with various infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV, and Tuberculosis, among injection drug users (IDUs), from different rehabilitation centers in several cities of Punjab region in Pakistan. Methods: This study was conducted between September, 2019 – September, 2020. Tota...

Fibroadenomas are quite common benign lesions in the adolescent age group, but it is a cause of concern for the individual and the family. These may remain asymptomatic or may present with pain. Aesthetic distortion of the breast symmetry may lead to psychosocial morbidity in adolescent females. The diagnosis is initially made by ultrasound. Magnet...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic rapidly spread globally. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus with a reported fatality rate ranging from 1% to 7%, and people with immune-compromised conditions, children, and older adults are particularly v...

Using viruses to our advantage has been a huge leap for humanity. Their ability to mediate horizontal gene transfer has made them useful tools for gene therapy, vaccine development, and cancer treatment. Adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses, retroviruses, lentiviruses, alphaviruses, and herpesviruses are a few of the most common candidates for us...

Coronavirus, at present, has created major health havoc across the world. It has been declared as a global health threat by the World Health Organization (WHO). The world has already experienced major outbreaks of coronaviruses previously. A few of the major outbreaks from the past include Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in...

Breast Cancer is a multifactorial disease and recent evidence that viruses have a greater role in its aetiology and pathophysiology than previously hypothesized, has garnered a lot of attention in the past couple of years. After the role of Mouse Mammary Tumour Virus (MMTV) in the oncogenesis of breast cancer has been proved in mice, search for sim...

It is important to diagnose multiple infections timely, to avoid potential treatment complications. We report a case here with multiple infections, admitted to the ICU of a private healthcare facility, for ventilatory support. On admission, he had reactive hepatitis E and hepatitis C, was suspected of oral thrush, acute and chronic typhoid associat...

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are continuously emerging, highly transmissible, and pathogenic agents that primarily target the human respiratory system. Previous outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome-CoV remain life-threatening and global public health concerns. A novel CoV outbreak that occurred in December...

Dengue is a vector-borne highly systemic infectious disease of the tropical and subtropical countries and is devastating millions of lives worldwide. It may be self-eliminated like a mild fever or may cause life-threatening fatal complications as dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. The lack of specific and effective antiviral drugs...

Oxidative stress is the process by which reactive molecules and free radicals are formed in cells. In this study, we report the blood-based gene expression profile of oxidative stress and antioxidant genes for identifying surrogate markers of liver tissue in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients by using real-time PCR. A total of 144 untreated patient...

Every year millions of people in various tropical and subtropical regions encounter infection with dengue virus. Within the last few decades, its prevalence has increased up to 30-fold globally and presently these viruses have been transmitted in more than 100 countries. Scientists contributed to the development of tetravalent dengue vaccine by ado...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are graphene sheets of nanometer size with unique strength and physio-chemical properties. These nano-structures of single and multi-layer graphene sheets have potential to conjugate with various functional groups. Recent advances in life sciences and nanotechnology have revealed that salient features of CNTs enable them to...

Every year, approximately 100 million individuals are infected with dengue viral infections. Severe dengue infection, characterized as dengue hemorrhagic fever, leads to loss of intravascular fluids and severe bleeding. During dengue virus (DENV) secondary infection, the body produces neutralizing antibodies that cause a strong immune response, res...

The highly infectious hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major cause of chronic hepatitis around the globe. Approximately 3% of the world's population has been affected by both chronic and acute HCV. In this study, we highlight the relationship between single-nucleotide proteins (SNPs) and interleukin (IL) IL28B on chromosome 19 with the treatment resp...

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) emerged as an epidemic in Africa in 1981, and now it has become a most destructive global pandemic. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is responsible for the pathogenesis of AIDS, and it is usually transmitted through unsafe sexual activities. HIV is a lentivirus that can remain latent in the host cells for...

Induction of highly pathogenic hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes chronic hepatitis round the world. This virus is easily prone to developing resistance against antiviral drugs because of two viral polymerases that do not possess the proofreading and overlapping reading frame abilities. There is more than one explanation for how this virus builds up re...

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infection activates a rapid stimulation of host innate immune responses and a delicate interplay between virus and host immune elements regulates the whole events. Although host immune elements play well in limiting the HSV-1 infection by interfering viral replication, they are still unable to remove the virus co...

Tuberculosis (TB) is a fatal infectious disease, caused by bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, killing nearly two million people every year. The increasing incidence of resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains to currently used drugs due to inadequate dosing and incomplete treatment regimens is a major factor contributing to the cu...

Introduction: Hepatitis G virus (HGV) infection appears to be common in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of HCV/HGV in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) in Pakistan and to look for possible associations with various clinical and histopathological changes in HCV/H...

The interaction between herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and its host starts with the attachment of the virus for entry and spreading into host cells involving viral glycoproteins and host receptors. Once entered, it remains persistent as a latent infection throughout the host's life as it cannot be cleared completely by the immune system. Viral...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is associated with one of the major health problem in world that ultimate results in the liver cirrhosis and leads to carcinoma of hepatocellular components round the world. More than 185 million people were found to be infected with HCV. MicroRNAs are small oligonucleotide RNA having 18–22 nucleotides. Circulating mi-RNAs r...

Objective: The study was accompanied to evaluate the specificity, cost and turn-around time of three different types of techniques that can be used for analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism of rs129796860. Methods: One hundred and one samples of patients infected with chronic Hepatitis C were genotyped with the three types of genotyping met...

Over the course of time, Hepatitis C has become a universal health menace. Its deleterious effects on human liver encompass a lot of physiological, genetic as well as epigenetic alterations. Fatty liver (Hepatic steatosis) is an inflammation having multifactorial ancestries; one of them is HCV (steatohepatitis). HCV boosts several cellular pathways...

Dengue Virus is transmitted to humans by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus having five serotypes 1-5 and infecting about 100 million people each year. To address dengue outbreak 2013 in Pakistan we aimed to conduct a comprehensive study at molecular level to determine the main causative serotype of 2013 DENV outbreak in Pakistan. Overall 703 serol...

The present study focused on a rapid identifcation of dengue virus from larvae of Aedes aegypti (L) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse) by using PCR. During this study, larvae of A. aegypti and A. albopictus were collected from different localities of Lahore during May to September of 2012 to 2014. RNA extracted from each mosquito larvae pool was tested b...

Background: Interferon is considered as the first line of defense against all infections including HCV. Unfortunately 50% of the patients do not respond to the existing treatment. Envelope protein 2 of HCV interacts with the interferon-inducible protein kinase (PKR) protein. This protein contains a sequence identical with phosphorylation sites of t...

Nrf2 is a potent regulator for the cellular defense system and belongs to a member of the cap 'n' collar (CNC) subfamily of transcription. Nrf2 senses the chemical, electrophilic and radiation-induced oxidative stress under basal conditions. Nrf2 is repressed and retained in cytoplasm by its negative regulator Keap1 and is polyubiquitinated by cull...

Background: Antiviral response rates are highly variable in Hepatitis B chronically infected individuals due to its extensive genetic variability. This genetic inconsistency varies from region to region and highly affects the severity of disease, its progression and treatment outcome. Idea of the existing work is to come across out antiviral respon...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that regulate a variety of biological processes. Recently, human liver-specific miRNA miR-122 has been reported to facilitate hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication in liver cells. HCV is one of the leading causes of liver diseases worldwide. In Pakistan, the estimated prevalence is up to 10%. Here, we rep...

Dengue virus infections and typhoid fever are among the endemic diseases in tropical and sub tropical regions of world. Bacteraemia with dengue co-infection is rare. Present study was designed to detect dengue virus RNA and then to test those samples for the detection of S typhi to check the co infection rate of these two infectious agents in Pakis...

Background: Pattern of Dengue periodic epidemics through the years along with sporadic cases of Dengue hemorrhagic fever followed by a severe 2011 epidemic of Dengue fever in Pakistan make Pakistan a Dengue endemic country. To study the entry and evolution of dengue virus serotype 2 (DENV-2) in Pakistan, we sequenced three full length genomes and...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the most important causes of chronic liver diseases, which include inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Several factors have been proposed to determine the clinical outcome of HCV infection. The accurate mechanism by which HCV damages the liver remains poorly understood. In chronic hepati...

Background: Dengue is a major public health problem in tropical and subtropical countries. Rapid and easy diagnosis of dengue can assist patient triage and care-management. The detection of anti-dengue antibodies on rapid lateral flow tests offers a faster route of presumptive dengue diagnosis once clinical findings are in favor of suspected dengue...

Introduction: Dengue virus (DENV) is an arthropod-borne virus that belonged to the Flaviviridae viral family. Four known serotypes DEN-1 through DEN-4 do exist and circulate in diverse geographical regions of the world causing epidemics. The management of dengue patients, and especially dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF)/Dengue shock syndrome (DSS) cas...

Nucleic acid amplification assays including PCR have revolutionized the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). Tuberculosis spread to almost every organ of the body and is characterized on the basis of localization of infection. Therefore, different types of body fluids and tissues can be used for the detection of MTB.From 2004 to 2010 tota...

To the Editor: The prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is high (8% of the population) in Pakistan (1). HCV is an RNA virus that has a high mutation rate. This high rate results in extensive genetic heterogeneity, and HCV isolates are found as either quasispecies or genotypes (2). Humans can be co-infected with >1 genotype (mixed genotyp...

The changing pattern in hepatitis C virus (HCV) clades overtime is not well known in Pakistan. To find out the changing pattern of different HCV clades over time in this country 22,125 patients were genotyped and tracked for a period of 11 years (2000-2010). A changing pattern in HCV clades was seen in this region during the study period. Sub-clade...

Hepatitis C is a major health problem affecting more than 200 million individuals in world including Pakistan. Current treatment regimen consisting of interferon alpha and ribavirin does not always succeed to eliminate virus completely from the patient's body. Interferon induced antiviral protein kinase R (PKR) has a role in the hepatitis C virus (...

The continuously mutating nature of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is responsible for the emergence of varying genotypes in different regions of the world affecting the disease outcome. The objective of the current study was to find out the pattern of HBV genotypes circulating in Pakistan. HBV genotypes were determined in HBV chronic patients of different...

Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) and Hepatitis B virus (HBV) co-infection is well known to induce a spectrum of acute and chronic liver diseases which further advance to cirrhosis, fulminant hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of hepatitis D virus super-infection among hepatitis B su...

Information regarding the changing pattern in hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes/subtypes and resulting disease outcome is not well known. The specific objective of this study was to find out the frequency distribution of HCV genotypes and changing pattern of various HCV genotypes overtime in well-characterized Pakistani HCV isolates. The genotype d...