BACKGROUND The efficacy of intramuscular islet transplantation is poor despite being technically simple, safe, and associated with reduced rates of severe complications. We evaluated the efficacy of combined treatment with extracellular matrix (ECM) and growth factors in intramuscular islet transplantation. METHODS Male BALB/C mice were used for the in vitro and transplantation studies. The f...

backgrounds: evidence is accumulating to support disruption of tissue architecture as a powerful event in tumor formation. for the past four decades, intensive cancer research with the premise of “cancer as a cell based-disease” focused on finding oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. however, the role of the tissue architecture was neglected. three dimensional (3d) cell cultures which can recap...

Matrigel, a basement membrane (BM) extract of the Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm (EHS) sarcoma, used in tumor invasion assays, was found to contain plasminogen. Plasminogen was identified, using Western blot analysis and casein zymograms, by comparison with human plasminogen. matrigel contained approximately 20-100 ng of plasminogen per 100 micrograms of protein as determined by these assays. Matrigel r...

Differences in attachment, proliferation, and differentiation were measured for human embryonic stem (hES) cells cultured on various substrata coated with Matrigel, a blend of extracellular matrix proteins derived from murine tumor cells. The authors observed that hES cells attach and grow poorly on Matrigel adsorbed onto polystyrene, while they proliferate when exposed to Matrigel adsorbed ont...