A High-Throughput Mechanical Activator for Cartilage Engineering Enables Rapid Screening of in vitro Response of Tissue Models to Physiological and Supra-Physiological Loads.
Articular cartilage is crucially influenced by loading during development, health, and disease. However, our knowledge of the mechanical conditions that promote engineered cartilage maturation or tissue repair is still incomplete. Current in vitro models that allow precise control of the local mechanical environment have been dramatically limited by very low throughput, usually just a few specimens per experiment. To overcome this constraint, we have developed a new device for the high throughput compressive loading of tissue constructs: the High Throughput Mechanical Activator for Cartilage Engineering (HiT-MACE), which allows the mechanoactivation of 6 times more samples than current tech…
Lipid nanoparticles as delivery vehicles for the Parietaria judaica major allergen Par j 2
Maria Luisa Bondì1,*, Giovanna Montana2,*, Emanuela Fabiola Craparo3, Roberto Di Gesù3, Gaetano Giammona3, Angela Bonura2, Paolo Colombo21Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati, 2Istituto di Biomedicina ed Immunologia Molecolare, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 3Laboratory of Biocompatible Polymers, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Molecolari e Biomolecolari Stembio, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy *These authors contributed equally to this workAbstract: Parietaria pollen is one of the major causes of allergic reaction in southern Europe, affecting about 30% of all allergic patients in this area. Specific immunotherapy is the only…
Klebsiella pneumoniae Lipopolysaccharides Serotype O2afg Induce Poor Inflammatory Immune Responses Ex Vivo
Currently, Klebsiella pneumoniae is a pathogen of clinical relevance due to its plastic ability of acquiring resistance genes to multiple antibiotics. During K. pneumoniae infections, lipopolysaccharides (LPS) play an ambiguous role as they both activate immune responses but can also play a role in immune evasion. The LPS O2a and LPS O2afg serotypes are prevalent in most multidrug resistant K. pneumoniae strains. Thus, we sought to understand if those two particular LPS serotypes were involved in a mechanism of immune evasion. We have extracted LPS (serotypes O1, O2a and O2afg) from K. pneumoniae strains and, using human monocytes ex vivo, we assessed the ability of those LPS antigens to in…
Lipid Nanoparticles for Drug Targeting to the Brain
In this chapter, the main production methods of lipid nanostructures such as solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carriers, and their application are described. In particular, we describe the strategies commonly used to obtain lipid nanoparticles to overcome the blood-brain barrier (BBB) for the treatment of several brain diseases. The use of these carriers as targeted drug delivery systems is associated with many advantages that include excellent storage stability, easy production without the use of any organic solvent, the possibility of steam sterilization and lyophilization, and large scale production. They exhibit good stability during long-term storage, consist of physio…