objective: as a biological tissue material, amniotic membrane (am) has low immunogenicity and to date has been widely adopted in clinical practice. however, some features such as low biomechanical consistency and rapid biodegradation is limited the application of am. therefore, in this study, we fabricated a novel three-dimensional (3d) spongy scaffold made of the extracellular matrix (ecm) of ...

Eosinophil degranulation has always aroused the interests of physicians and scientists alike. Loss of viability and release of membrane-free granules upon eosinophil degranulation was first demonstrated by Gleich and coworkers in 1996. These free eosinophil granules, once considered as crush artifacts, are now confirmed products of eosinophil cytolysis, and suggested to be significantly pathoge...

Tumor-Associated Macrophages (TAM) are key components of the reactive stroma of tumors. In most, although not all cancers, their presence is associated with poor patient prognosis. In addition to releasing cytokines and growth factors for tumor and endothelial cells, a distinguished feature of TAM is their high-rate degradation of the extra-cellular matrix. This incessant stroma remodelling fav...

Carboxylates, such as malate and citrate, are widely acknowledged to have a central role in plant metabolism. They are involved in the production of energy and its storage as well as contributing to the cellular osmolyte pool and participating in the regulation of cellular pH. As we discuss here, recent research has demonstrated the functional importance of carboxylate excretion into the soil, ...

Ageing of human skin is associated with phenotypic changes in the cutaneous cells; the major functional markers of ageing occur as consequences of dermal and epidermal cell senescence and of structural and compositional remodeling of normally long-lived dermal extracellular matrix proteins. Understanding the contribution of the dermal cells in skin ageing is a key question, since this tissue is...

The modulation of the metastatic progression of breast cancer has been evaluated in vitro and in vivo with RAPTA-T, [Ru(eta6-toluene)Cl2(PTA)], an organometallic ruthenium compound. In vitro RAPTA-T inhibits some steps of the metastatic process such as the detachment from the primary tumour, the migration/invasion and the re-adhesion to a new growth substrate. All these effects are boosted when...