BACKGROUND Asthma and obesity, two growing epidemics worldwide, may share an underlying causal relationship. Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), a defining component of asthma, has been documented in both 'obese' animal models and non-asthmatic obese individuals. However, there is a paucity of evidence that obesity-derived factors directly affect human airway smooth muscles (ASM). METHODS Exper...

The secretion of trophic factors that promote angiogenesis from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is a promising cell-based therapeutic treatment. However, clinical efficacy has proved variable, likely on account of ill-defined cell delivery formulations and the inherent complexity of cellular secretion. Here we show how controlling the mechanical properties and protein composition of the extracell...

Patients with adult T-cell lymphoma frequently have hypercalcemia. Bone biopsies from these patients show increased numbers of osteoclasts. We hypothesized that substances produced by the malignant T-cell caused these phenomena by increasing the formation and/or activity of osteoclasts. To test this hypothesis, we cultured U937 cells in conditioned media from a clonal T-cell line derived from a...

Unregulated secretion of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) or their endogenous protein inhibitors (tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases, TIMPs) has been implicated in tumor invasion and metastasis. Species of MMPs and TIMPs secreted by epithelial cultures of normal, benign, and malignant prostate were identified and their levels were compared. Fragments of fresh tissue were cultured in a serum...

Sternal chondrocytes of 17-day-old chick embryos in serum-free agarose culture secrete transforming growth factor-beta. Media conditioned by such cells prevent serum-induced chondrocyte hypertrophy and cause a phenotypic modulation in serum-free culture which is similar to that observed for chondrocytes in monolayer culture. The modulated cells lose the round shape of differentiated chondrocyte...

To examine the influence of the hematopoietic microenvironment on hematopoietic cell proliferation and differentiation during the yolk sac phase of hematopoiesis, we have recently established cell lines from embryonic yolk sac visceral endoderm (YSE) and mesoderm (YSM). In the present experiments, we compared in vitro growth of adult murine bone marrow high proliferative potential colony-formin...

To determine whether leptin alone accounts for the satiety activity secreted by native adipose tissue, we prepared culture media conditioned by microdissected adipose tissue from overfed Long-Evans rats, fa/ farats, or db/ dbmice ( media A, B, and C, respectively). Medium A significantly suppressed food intake following intracerebroventricular delivery to Long-Evans rats (2-h chow intake = 68 ±...

Neuroinflammation is recognized as a major factor in Parkinson's disease (PD) pathogenesis and increasing evidence propose that microglia is the main source of inflammation contributing to the dopaminergic degeneration observed in PD. Several studies suggest that astrocytes could act as physiological regulators preventing excessive microglia responses. However, little is known regarding how ast...

Wnt-1-induced secreted protein 1 (WISP-1) is a member of the CCN (connective tissue growth factor, Cyr61, NOV) family of growth factors. Structural and experimental evidence suggests that CCN family member activities are modulated by their interaction with sulfated glycoconjugates. To elucidate the mechanism of action for WISP-1, we characterized the specificity of its tissue and cellular inter...