BACKGROUND In women dynamic changes in uterine tissue architecture occur during each menstrual cycle. Menses, characterised by the shedding of the upper functional layer of the endometrium, is the culmination of a cascade of irreversible changes in tissue function including stromal decidualisation, inflammation and production of degradative enzymes. The molecular mechanisms that contribute to t...

introduction: stromal cells having preadipocyte characteristics can be isolated from adipose tissue, propagated in vitro and induced to differentiate in vitro toward the osteogenic, adipogenic, myogenic and chondrogenic lineages when treated with established lineage-specific factors. in this research we isolated stromal cells from human adipose tissue and cultured and expanded and examined thei...

Sections of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues from 210 human breast cancers were immunohistochemically examined using the mAb against human tenascin (TN) RCB1. Immunoreactive TN was detected in the breast cancer stroma in 77 (36.7%) cases, whereas the remaining 133 (63.3%) were negative. Of the 77, 12 (5.7%) cases also showed positive staining in the carcinoma cell cytoplasm. The positi...

Two human stromal cell lines were established previously from bone marrow-derived primary long-term cultures by immortalization using the SV40 large T antigen and cellular cloning. After irradiation, the fibroblast-like cell lines L87/4 and L88/5 support hematopoietic differentiation of allogeneic cord blood cells in vitro. The stromal cells do not express CD34 and CD50, but some adhesion molec...

AIMS In the adult heart, Notch signalling regulates the response to injury. Notch inhibition leads to increased cardiomyocyte apoptosis, and exacerbates the development of cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. The role of Notch in the mesenchymal stromal cell fraction, which contains cardiac fibroblasts and cardiac precursor cells, is, however, largely unknown. In the present study, we evaluate, th...

background: mesenchymal stem cells (mscs) are important candidates for msc-based cellular therapy. current paradigm states that mscs support local progenitor cells in damaged tissue through paracrine signaling. therefore, study of paracrine effects and secretome of mscs could lead to the appreciation of mechanisms and molecules associated with the therapeutic effects of these cells. this study ...

Secondary lymphoid tissues such as lymph nodes are essential for the interactions between antigen presenting cells and lymphocytes that result in adaptive immune responses that protect the host against invading pathogens. The specialized architecture of these organs facilitates the cognate interactions between antigen-loaded dendritic cells and lymphocytes expressing their specific receptor as ...

Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) can reconstitute and sustain the entire blood system. We generated a highly specific transgenic reporter of HSPCs in zebrafish. This allowed us to perform high-resolution live imaging on endogenous HSPCs not currently possible in mammalian bone marrow. Using this system, we have uncovered distinct interactions between single HSPCs and their niche....