Valve interstitial cells (VICs) are fibroblastic in nature however in culture it is widely accepted that they differentiate into a myofibroblastic phenotype. This study assessed a fibroblast culture media formulation for its ability to maintain the phenotype and function of VICs as in the intact healthy valve. Normal human VICs were cultured separately in standard DMEM and in fibroblast media c...

background tendon injuries are common and it takes a long time for an injured tendon to heal. adverse phenomena such as adhesion and rupture are associated with these injuries. finding a method to reduce the time required for healing whichimproves the final outcome, will lead to decreased frequency and intensity of adverse consequences. this study was designed to investigate the effects of basi...

The kinetics of cell aggregation in shaking suspension are complex. Consequently most existing forms of assessment are qualitative or semiquantitative. We have used a Coulter counter coupled to a particle size discriminator to describe aggregation more precisely. BHK21 C13 cells were suspended by light or heavy trypsin/EDTA treatments, and then aggregated at 37 °C. Plots were obtained showing t...

Epithelial cells obtained from normal human urothelium, a cell line derived from a papillary bladder carcinoma, and cells derived from an invasive carcinoma were grown in a serum-free fully defined medium. The interaction between these cell types and normal bladder stromal cells obtained by explant culture in serum were investigated in mixed cultures. These studies showed that normal urothelium...

in this study, we have investigated the proliferative response of human dermal fibroblasts isolated from normal and psoriatic individuals to different cytokines. we found that il-1, tnf (α) and egf are stimulatory whereas ifn « and 1 both showed inhibitory activity on fibroblast proliferation. il-6 a more recently described cytokine, showed no detectable effects on cell proliferation. investiga...

OBJECTIVE Allograft inflammatory factor 1 (AIF-1) was first identified in rat cardiac allografts undergoing chronic rejection. The vasculopathy of chronic allograft rejection is strikingly similar to that seen in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). We previously demonstrated AIF-1 expression in inflammatory cells infiltrating skin and lungs from SSc patients, but its role in SSc pathogenesi...

To understand the molecular mechanism(s) of how spaceflight affects cellular signaling pathways, quiescent normal human WI-38 fibroblasts were flown on the STS-93 space shuttle mission. Subsequently, RNA samples from the space-flown and ground-control cells were used to construct two cDNA libraries, which were then processed for suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) to identify spacefligh...