Due to the poor capacity for articular cartilage to regenerate, its damage tends to result in progressively degenerating conditions such as osteoarthritis. To repair the damage, the transplantation of allogeneic human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cartilage is being considered. However, although allogeneic cartilage transplantation is effective, immunological reactions can occur. One hypothetical solution is to delete the expression of MHC class I molecules in order to reduce the ...
Last. Lixin Zhu(Southern Medical University)H-Index: 4
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Bone defects caused by infection, tumor, trauma and so on remain difficult to treat clinically. Bone tissue engineering (BTE) has great application prospect in promoting bone defect repair. Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a commonly used material for creating BTE scaffolds. In addition, self-assembling peptides (SAPs) can function as the extracellular matrix and promote osteogenesis and angiogenesis. In the work, a PCL scaffold was constructed by 3D printing, then integrated with bone marrow mesenchym...
Vascularization is currently considered the biggest challenge in bone tissue engineering due to necrosis in the center of large scaffolds. We established a new expendable vascular bundle model to vascularize a 3D printed channelled scaffold with and without BMP2 for improved healing of large segmental bone defects. Bone formation and angiogenesis in an 8 mm critical sized bone defect in the rat femur were significantly promoted by inserting a bundle consisting of the superficial epigastric arter...
Cellular microenvironments provide stimuli including paracrine and autocrine growth factors and physico-chemical cues, which support efficient in vivo cell production unmatched by current in vitro biomanufacturing platforms. While three-dimensional (3D) culture systems aim to recapitulate niche architecture and function of the target tissue/organ, they are limited in accessing spatiotemporal information to evaluate and optimize in situ cell/tissue process development. Herein, a mathematical mode...
With the expected rise in patients undergoing refractive lenticule extraction worldwide, the amount of discarded corneal stromal lenticules will increase. Therefore, establishing a lenticule bank t...
In-vitro engineering of human articular cartilage (AC) is a regenerative medicine challenge. The main objective of this study was the development of a repeatable scaffold-free in-vitro model of chondrocyte spheroid-based treatments of cartilage defects, to allow for systematic study and further optimisation of this type of treatment. Human articular chondrocytes (HC) and immortalised mesenchymal cells differentiated in chondrocytes (Y201-Cs) were cultured in round-bottom 96-well plates to produc...
Advances in the engineering of comprehensive skeletal muscle models in vitro will improve drug screening platforms and can lead to better therapeutic approaches for the treatment of skeletal muscle injuries. To this end, a vascularized tissue-engineered skeletal muscle (TE-SkM) model that includes adipocytes was developed in order to better emulate the intramuscular adipose tissue that is observed in skeletal muscles of patients with diseases like diabetes. Muscle precursor cells (MPCs) cultured...
Osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by progressive articular cartilage loss. Human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) can be used for cartilage repair therapies based on their potential to differentiate into chondrocytes. However, the joint microenvironment is a major determinant of the success of MSC-based cartilage formation. Currently, there is no tool that is able to predict the effect of a patient's OA joint microenvironment on MSC-based cartilage formation. Our goal was to develop a molecul...
Fibrosis of the knee is a common disorder resulting from an aberrant wound healing response and is characterized by extracellular matrix deposition, joint contraction, and scar tissue formation. The principal regulator of the fibrotic cascade is transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF-β1), a factor that induces rapid proliferation and differentiation of resident fibroblasts. In this study, we demonstrate successful inhibition of TGF-β1-driven myofibroblastic differentiation in human fibroblast-li...