IMPORTANCE Advances in tissue engineering offer potential alternatives to current mandibular reconstructive techniques; however, before clinical translation of this technology, a relevant animal model must be used to validate possible interventions. OBJECTIVE To establish the critical-sized segmental mandibular defect that does not heal spontaneously in the rat mandible. DESIGN AND SETTING ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of porous biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) scaffolds on the proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation of human periodontal ligament cells (hPDLCs) in the presence and absence of osteogenic inducer (L-ascorbic acid, dexamethasone and β-glycerophosphate). The cell growth within the scaffolds in the absence of osteogenic inducers was studied by...

S U M M A R Y Pacific Ocean crust west of southwest North America was formed by Cenozoic seafloor spreading between the large Pacific Plate and smaller microplates. The eastern limit of this seafloor, the continent–ocean boundary, is the fossil trench along which the microplates subducted and were mostly destroyed in Miocene time. The Pacific–North America Plate boundary motion today is concent...

Microbial extracellular hydrolytic enzymes that degrade organic matter in aquatic ecosystems play key roles in the biogeochemical carbon cycle. To provide linkages between hydrolytic enzyme activities and genomic or metabolomic studies in aquatic environments, reliable measurements are required for many samples at one time. Extracellular proteases are one of the most important classes of enzyme...

Understanding and controlling the metabolic processes of microorganisms associated with chicken meat can lead to safer poultry products with a longer shelf life. The objective of the present study was threefold: 1) to determine the feasibility of using 96-well Biolog GN microtiter plates to assess substrate utilization profiles of bacterial communities (biofilm) as they develop on poultry produ...

Human plasma kallikrein, a product of contact-activated plasma proteolysis, is moderately inhibited by aprotinin, a small polypeptide from bovine lung that has been used as an experimental drug in human disease states. Aprotinin has a Lys residue in the P1 (reactive center) position occupying residue 15. Since kallikrein is an arginine-directed serine protease, we hypothesized that an altered f...

Virus-neutralizing antibodies are seldom estimated in routine diagnostic laboratories because methods involving replicate series of tubed cell monolayers are so demanding of time and materials. Simplified methods for performing neutralization tests have been described, but these were generally developed for specific purposes and have required various forms of specialized apparatus. One of the e...

Microplates with integrated optical oxygen sensors are a new tool to study metabolic rates and enzyme activities. Precise measurements are possible only if oxygen exchange between the sample and the environment is known. In this study we quantify gas exchange in plastic microplates. Dissolved oxygen was detected using either an oxygen-sensitive film fixed at the bottom of each well or a needle-...

BACKGROUND Opioid preconditioning protects the myocardium against ischemia/reperfusion (IR) injury. By enhancing cardiomyocyte viability, opioids can enhance cardiac function and recovery from IR injury during acute cardiac care. The myocyte model HL-1 is an immortalized, mouse atrial cell line that expresses functional delta-opioid receptors. The HL-1 myocyte may be useful for IR injury resear...

Abstract An automated, qualitative and semi-quantitative micro-assay for the detection of plant lectins also known as phyto-agglutinins (glycoproteins; have exciting applications in medicines) is described an alternative to conventional assays. The method developed this work based on hemagglutination (HA) assay that can simultaneously detect presence concentration (titer) many 96 different samp...