Observations made on 31 amniotic fluid cell strains serially cultured until senescent are recorded. The cell strains had an average life in culture of 13-9 passages (range 3-29). The source of the amniotic fluid from which the cultures were initiated did not influence the behaviour of the cell strains. The behaviour ofthe cell strains was unrelated to the growth characteristics of the primary c...

BACKGROUND Oronasal fistulas are a frequent complication after cleft palate surgery. Numerous repair methods have been described, but wound-healing problems occur often. The authors investigated, for the first time, the suitability of multilayered amniotic membrane allograft for fistula repair in a laboratory experiment (part A), a swine model (part B), and an initial patient series (part C). ...

Human amniotic membrane is a standard substratum used to culture limbal epithelial stem cells for transplantation to patients with limbal stem cell deficiency. Various methods were developed to decellularize amniotic membrane, because denuded membrane is poorly immunogenic and better supports repopulation by dissociated limbal epithelial cells. Amniotic membrane denuding usually involves treatm...

The first reported use of fetal membrane as skin substitute was by Davis in 1910. 1 In 1913, Salbella presented the first clinical report of successful use of amniotic membrane in the treatment of burns and skin ulcerations. 2 In 1940, DeRoth reported the use of amniotic membrane in the repair of conjuctival defects. From 1940 to 1965 a number of clinical trials of successful use of amniotic me...

The presence of contaminating maternal cells in amniotic fluid is an important, though infrequent, cause of error in karyotyping the fetus. A method of detecting contaminating maternal cells in amniocentesis specimens by determining the HLA phenotype of the cells of amniotic fluid and the mother is described. Tissue typing of 15 amniocentesis specimens was performed, and in 14 cases the fetal o...

The amniotic membrane is a tissue of fetal origin and is composed of three major layers: a single epithelial layer, a thick basement membrane, and an avascular mesenchyme [Fernandes et al., 2005]. There are no nerves, muscles or lymphatics in the amnion. The amniotic membrane is derived from the inner cell mass in the blastocyst and is adjacent to the trophoblast cells and lines the amniotic ca...

An autopsy case of amniotic band syndrome with bilateral epibulbar choristoma is described. The left eye reveals a complex choristoma and the right eye a dermis-like choristoma. Both choristomatous lesions included lenticular tissue suggesting that rupture of the amnion, which is the initial event of amniotic band syndrome, might have occurred at about the fourth week of gestation. Since the ot...

objective(s): umbilical cord blood is a good source of the mesenchymal stem cells that can be banked, expanded and used in regenerative medicine.  the objective of this study was to test whether amniotic membrane extract, as a rich source of growth factors such as basic-fibroblast growth factor, can promote the proliferation potential of the umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells. materials and ...

background: previous studies have shown that preeclampsia is associated with elevated maternal serum homocysteine levels, but few studies have evaluated homocysteine levels in amniotic fluid in these patients. the purpose of this study was to compare amniotic fluid homocysteine levels in preeclamptic women, with those of normal pregnant women. methods: a cross sectional study was done on 46 pre...

The fetal intestinal mucosa is characterized by elevated Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) expression, which can lead to the development of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC)--a devastating inflammatory disease of the premature intestine--upon exposure to microbes. To define endogenous strategies that could reduce TLR4 signaling, we hypothesized that amniotic fluid can inhibit TLR4 signaling within the ...