Bile salt/phospholipid mixed micelles (MMs) are potent carriers used for oral absorption of drugs that are poorly soluble in water; however, there are many limitations associated with liquid formulations. In the current study, the feasibility of preparing bile salt/phospholipid MM precursor (preMM) pellets with high oral bioavailability, using fluid-bed coating technology, was examined. In this...

Three size classes of Capitella capitata (Type I ) were fed 4 size ranges of detritus particles derived from red seaweed Gracilaria foliifera. Growth was generally reduced when only the largest particle-size range (150 to 250 pm) was available, and the effect was most pronounced for small worms. Worms lost weight when fed fecal pellets comparable in size to the largest particles of seaweed detr...

Iron ore pellets are sintered, centimetre-sized spheres of ore with high iron content. Together with carbonized coal, iron ore pellets are used in the production of steel. In the transportation from the pelletizing plants to the customers, the iron ore pellets are exposed to different loading situations, resulting in degradation of strength and in some cases fragmentation. For future reliable n...

Selenium-accumulator plants are reputed to be unpalatable to livestock. The objective of this study was to determine if sheep and cattle could discriminate between forages and feeds with different concentrations of Se. In the first study, cattle and sheep preferences for intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and western aster (Symphyotrichum ascendens) of ...

Administration of exogenous glucocorticoids is known to suppress the HPA axis and has been reported to occupy brain glucocorticoid receptors, eventually leading to down-regulation. To determine the effects of chronic corticosterone administration on HPA axis function, corticosterone was administered as both 25% and 50% corticosterone/cholesterol pellets. Rats were sacrificed 6 days after cortic...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated a novel approach to induce chondrogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC). We hypothesized that a structured three-dimensional co-culture using hMSC and chondrocytes would provide chondroinductive cues to hMSC without inducing hypertrophy. METHOD In an effort to promote optimal chondrogenic differentiation of hMSC, we created bilaminar ce...

Sustained and controlled pellets are considered as one of the ideal dosage forms. Due to the large coverage area of pellets, loaded drugs can be absorbed completely in the body and bioavailability is improved correspondingly. Coated pellets-containing tablet is a special oral formulation consisting of various pellets with different release rate. Desired rate of drug release rate can be achieved...

Grafting bone defects or atrophic non-unions with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs)-based grafts is not yet successful. MSC-based grafts typically use undifferentiated or osteogenically differentiated MSCs and regenerate bone through intramembranous ossification. Endochondral ossification might be more potent but requires chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs. Here, we determined if chondrogenica...

the main objective of this study was to prepare colon-specific pellets of budesonide, using pectin as film coating. pellet cores of budesonide were prepared by extrusion / spheronization technique. pectin, in different ratios was combined with eudragit rs30d, eudragit ne30d or surelease to produce film coating. the dissolution profiles of pectin coated pellets were investigated in ph of 1.2 (2 ...

Sheep with oesophageal fistulas were used in sham-feeding experiments to assess how sham intakes were affected by (a) physical form of straw (finely and coarsely ground; ground and pelleted), (b) type of food (straw pellets v. lucerne (Medicago sativa) hay pellets) and (c) additions of monosodium glutamate (MSG) with or without NaCl to the various straw diets. Normal animals were also fed on di...