Cartilage regeneration is a fast growing field that combines biotechnology and molecular techniques in creating new tissue mimicking the native microenvironment. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are a highly potent cell source for cartilage regeneration owing to their infinite proliferation capacity and pluripotency. Thus, lineage-specific differentiation of hESCs often results in populations...

Hypertrophic scar formation is a result of adverse cutaneous wound healing. The pathogenesis of hypertrophic scar formation is still poorly understood. A problem next to the lack of suitable animal models is that often normal skin is compared to hypertrophic scar (HTscar) and not to normotrophic scar (NTscar) tissue. Another drawback is that often only one time period after wounding is studied,...

OBJECTIVE Histone acetylation and deacetylation may play a role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory lung diseases. We evaluated the preventive effect of valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, on neonatal hyperoxic lung injury. METHODS Forty newborn rat pups were randomized in normoxia, normoxia+VPA, hyperoxia and hyperoxia+VPA groups. Pups in the normoxia and normoxia+VP...

We have identified a role for two evolutionarily related, secreted metalloproteases of the ADAMTS family, ADAMTS20 and ADAMTS9, in palatogenesis. Adamts20 mutations cause the mouse white-spotting mutant belted (bt), whereas Adamts9 is essential for survival beyond 7.5 days gestation (E7.5). Functional overlap of Adamts9 with Adamts20 was identified using Adamts9(+/-);bt/bt mice, which have a fu...

Human bone marrow-derived stromal cells (hBMSCs) derived from the adult organism hold great promise for diverse settings in regenerative medicine. Therefore a more complete understanding of hBMSC biology to fully exploit the cells' potential for clinical settings is important. The protein CD24 has been reported to be involved in a diverse range of processes such as cancer, adaptive immunity, in...

OBJECTIVE(S) Osteoarthritis is one of the most common diseases in middle-aged population in the world. Cartilage tissue engineering (TE) has been presented as an effort to introduce the best combination of cells, biomaterial scaffolds and stimulating growth factors to produce a cartilage tissue similar to the natural articular cartilage. In this study, the chondrogenic potential of adipose deri...

Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) may develop corneal complications and delayed wound healing. The aims of this study are to characterize the molecular signatures and biological pathways leading to delayed epithelial wound healing and to delineate the involvement of TGFβ3 therein. Genome-wide cDNA microarray analysis revealed 1,888 differentially expressed genes in the healing epithelia of n...

The objective of this study was to determine the functional properties of cartilaginous tissues generated by porcine MSCs isolated from different tissue sources, and to compare these properties to those derived from chondrocytes (CCs). MSCs were isolated from bone marrow (BM) and infrapatellar fat pad (FP), while CCs were harvested from the articular surface of the femoro-patellar joint. Cultur...

Cytokines and growth factors in colostrum and mature milk may play an important role in infant immune maturation, and may vary significantly between populations. We aimed to examine associations between environmental and maternal factors, and human milk (HM) cytokine and growth factor levels. We recruited 398 pregnant/lactating women in the United Kingdom, Russia, and Italy. Participants underw...

Objective(s):Osteoarthritis (OA) is globally one of the most common diseases from the middle age onwards. Cartilage is an avascular tissue therefore it cannot be repaired in the body. Conservative treatments have failed as a good remedy and cell therapy as a decisive cure is needed. One of the best and easily accessible cell sources for this purpose is adipose-derived stem cells which can be di...