The pattern of type II collagen expression during Xenopus laevis embryogenesis has been established after isolating specific cDNA and genomic clones. Evidence is presented suggesting that in X. laevis there are two transcriptionally active copies of the type II procollagen gene. Both genes are activated at the beginning of neurula stage and steady-state mRNA levels progressively increase therea...

Type II collagen is a major component of cartilage. Heterozygous mutations in the type II collagen gene (COL2A1) result in a group of skeletal dysplasias known as Type II collagenopathy (COL2pathy). The understanding of COL2pathy is limited by difficulties in obtaining live chondrocytes. In the present study, we converted COL2pathy patients' fibroblasts directly into induced chondrogenic (iChon...

Belmadani S, Zerfaoui M, Boulares HA, Palen DI, Matrougui K. Microvessel vascular smooth muscle cells contribute to collagen type I deposition through ERK1/2 MAP kinase, v 3-integrin, and TGF1 in response to ANG II and high glucose. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 295: H69–H76, 2008. First published May 2, 2008; doi:10.1152/ajpheart.00341.2008.—This study determines that vascular smooth muscle ...

Osteoarthritis (OA) is an inflammatory joint disease characterized by degeneration of articular cartilage within synovial joints. An estimated 27 million Americans suffer from OA and the population is expected to reach 67 million in USA by 2030. Thus, it is urgent to find an effective OA treatment. Traditional OA treatments have no disease-modifying effect while regenerative OA therapies such a...

BACKGROUND Osteoarthritis is the most widespread joint-affecting disease. Patients with osteoarthritis experience pain and impaired mobility resulting in marked reduction of quality of life. A progressive cartilage loss is responsible of an evolving disease difficult to treat. The characteristic of chronicity determines the need of new active disease modifying drugs. Aim of the present research...

The effects of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and cationic polymers on the adhesion and proliferation of rat islet cells, RIN-5F cells, were investigated. ECM proteins of laminin, fibronectin, vitronectin, type I collagen, type II collagen, and type IV collagen, and cationic polyelectrolytes of poly(L-lysine) and poly(allylamine) were coated on the wells of polystyrene cell culture plates....

Type I collagen is the main dermal component, and its evaluation is relevant to quantitative studies in dermatopathology. However, visual gradation (0 to 4+) has low precision and high subjectivity levels. This study aimed to develop and validate a digital morphometric analysis technique to estimate type I collagen levels in the papillary dermis. Four evaluators visually quantified (0 to 4+) th...

Collagen gels are promising scaffolds to prepare an implant for cartilage repair but several parameters, such as collagen concentration and composition as well as cell density, should be carefully considered, as they are reported to affect phenotypic aspects of chondrocytes. In this study we investigated whether the presence of collagen type I or II in gel lattices affects matrix contraction an...

Quail embryo chondrocytes in culture display two morphological phenotypes: polygonal epithelial-like and floating cells. Both cell populations synthesize cartilage extracellular matrix proteins (type II collagen and specific proteoglycans), whereas type X collagen, which appears to be a marker of later stages of chondrocyte differentiation, is expressed only by the epithelial-like cells. Avian ...