We demonstrate that Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) enables monitoring of cellular grafts with high contrast, sensitivity, and quantitativeness. MPI directly detects the intense magnetization of iron-oxide tracers using low-frequency magnetic fields. MPI is safe, noninvasive and offers superb sensitivity, with great promise for clinical translation and quantitative single-cell tracking. Here we...

Ceramide and its derivative sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) are important signaling sphingolipids for neural stem cell apoptosis and differentiation. Most recently, our group has shown that novel ceramide analogs can be used to eliminate teratoma (stem cell tumor)-forming cells from a neural stem cell graft. In new studies, we found that S1P promotes survival of specific neural precursor cells th...

Background: Iliac osteotomies in adolescent patients may accompany graft related difficulties such as graft absorptionand delayed union. A new modification of iliac osteotomies has been proposed to address these difficulties.Methods: A total of 24 consecutive hip joints in 21 juvenile or adolescent patients who were candidate for salter ortriple pelvic osteotomy were included....

Here, we explore whether silencing via promoter DNA methylation plays a role in neural versus neural crest cell lineage decisions. We show that DNA methyltransferase3A (DNMT3A) promotes neural crest specification by directly mediating repression of neural genes like Sox2 and Sox3. DNMT3A is expressed in the neural plate border, and its knockdown causes ectopic Sox2 and Sox3 expression at the ex...

Uveal melanoma is the most common intraocular malignancy in adults, representing between about 4% and 5% of all melanomas. High expression levels of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 4A3, a dual phosphatase, is highly predictive of metastasis development and PTP4A3 overexpression in uveal melanoma cells increases their in vitro migration and in vivo invasiveness. Melanocytes, including uveal melanoc...

The neural crest is a unique cell population induced at the lateral border of the neural plate. Neural crest is not produced at the anterior border of the neural plate, which is fated to become forebrain. Here, the roles of BMPs, FGFs, Wnts, and retinoic acid signaling in neural crest induction were analyzed by using an assay developed for investigating the posteriorization of the neural plate....

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects an estimated 7-10 million people worldwide and remains without definitive or disease-modifying treatment. There have been many recent developments in cell-based therapy (CBT) to replace lost circuitry and provide chronic biological sources of therapeutic agents to the PD-affected brain. Early neural transplantation studies underscored the challenges of immune co...

Following dentofacial surgical procedures, teeth in segments often do not sense thermal or electric stimuli. This study was undertaken to assess changes in the neural component of the dental pulp after posterior maxillary and mandibular segmental osteotomies, with or without interpositional autogenous bone grafting, in 26 Chacma baboons. Innervation was assessed histologically immediately after...

When surgical decompression of cervical spine is considered, multilevel cervical corpectomy with long strut grafts is the preferred treatment. This procedure is used in a variety of pathologies including degenerative disease, tumors, trauma and infection. Corpectomy with interbody grafting helps in adequate spinal canal and neural decompression compared to multilevel discectomy, which could be ...

The mechanisms underlying rejection of grafted neural tissue are still being defined. Mechanisms relevant to genetically engineered cells are of current interest. To date, attention has focused on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens as targets of graft rejection. Yet even when there is no MHC disparity, as when the patient's own cells are genetically altered, there is still a potent...