OBJECTIVE Osteoarthritis (OA) is a non-rheumatologic joint disease characterized by progressive degeneration of the cartilage extra-cellular matrix (ECM), enhanced subchondral bone remodeling, activation of synovial macrophages and osteophyte growth. Inhibition of calcineurin (Cn) activity through tacrolimus (FK506) in in vitro monolayer chondrocytes exerts positive effects on ECM marker expres...

Reactivity of snails against parasites exhibits a primitive focal reaction, with encapsulation, phagocytosis and destruction of parasite larvae by macrophage-like cells - the hemocytes. This reaction mimics granulomatous inflammation seen in higher animals. However, different from the latter, little is known about the participation of extra-cellular matrix in such snail defense reactions. Norma...

The presence of fat and other lipids within the cytoplasm of cartilage cells has often been observed. Collins, Ghadially, and Meachim (1965) in a previous paper have described this phenomenon in some detail. They find that intra-cellular lipid is an almost constant feature of the chondrocytes of adult hyaline cartilage in various anatomical situations in man and rodents, that it is more promine...

We expose first a biological model of memory based on one hand of the mechanical oscillations of axons during action potential and on the other hand on the changes in the extra cellular matrix composition when a mechanical strain is applied on it. Due to these changes, the stiffness of the extra cellular matrix along the most excited neurons will increase close to these neurons due to the growt...

Irreversible hepatic fibrosis, an excessive production and accumulation of extra cellular matrix by stellate cells in the liver, becomes a remarkable economic burden global health care system.Low therapeutic efficacy undesirable systemic effect conventional therapies limit their clinical applications to targethepatic cells.

in the last decade, cellular automata models have been widely used for simulation spatial phenomena; however, exact nature of these models have been lead to various limitations for essential simulation of these phenomena. in this research, traditional cellular automata models have been developed through fuzzy theory, in which, transition rules are expressed based on fuzzy logic control methodol...

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Abstract We formulate an active-gel theory for multicellular migration in the extra-cellular matrix (ECM). The cells are modeled as active, polar solvent, and ECM a viscoelastic solid. Our enables to analyze dynamic reciprocity between migrating their environment terms of distinct relative forces alignment mechanisms. linear stability homogeneously ECM. predicts that, consequence cell-matrix al...