Search results for "Articular Cartilage"

Experimental Characterization of the Human Meniscal Tissue

2018

The meniscus plays a critical role in load transmission, stability and energy dissipation in the knee joint. Loss of the meniscus leads to joint degeneration and osteoarthritis. In a number of cases replacement of the resected meniscal tissue by a synthetic implant might avoid the articular cartilage degeneration. None of the available implants presents optimal biomechanics characteristic due to the fact the biomechanics functionality of the meniscus is not yet fully understood. Mimicking the native biomechanical characteristics of the menisci seems to be the key factor in meniscus replacement functioning. This is extremely challenging due to its complex inhomogeneous microstructure, the la…

Cardiac Stem Cell Research: An Elephant in the Room?

2009

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the industrialized world, and stem cell therapy seems to be a promising treatment for injured cardiac tissue. To reach this goal, the scientific community needs to find a good source of stem cells that can be used to obtain new myocardium in a very period range of time. Since there are many ethical and technical problems with using embryonic stem cells as a source of cells with cardiogenic potential, many laboratories have attempted to isolate potential cardiac stem cells from several tissues. The best candidates seem to be cardiac "progenitor" and/or "stem" cells, which can be isolated from subendocardial biopsies from the same patient or from…

Isolation, cultivation and characterization of human somatic stem cells from adult skin, adipose tissue and bone marrow

2008

Isolation, cultivation and characterization of human somatic stem cells from adult skin, adipose tissue and bone marrow

Application of mesenchymal stem cells in bone regenerative procedures in oral implantology. A literature review

2013

Objective: The aim of this work was to review de literature about the role of mesenchymal stem cells in bone regenerative procedures in oral implantology, specifically, in the time require to promote bone regeneration. Study Design: A bibliographic search was carried out in PUBMED with a combination of different key words. Animal and human studies that assessed histomorphometrically the influence of mesenchymal stem cells on bone regeneration procedures in oral implantology surgeries were examined. Reults: - Alveolar regeneration: Different controlled histomorphometric animal studies showed that bone regeneration is faster using stem cells seeded in scaffolds than using scaffolds or platele…

Could tubular interstitium be a source of adult epithelial stem cells?

2006

Cardiac tissue engineering: a reflection after a decade of hurry

2014

The heart is a perfect machine whose mass is mainly composed of cardiomyocytes, but also fibroblasts, endothelial, smooth muscle, nervous, and immune cells are represented. One thousand million cardiomyocytes are estimated to be lost after myocardial infarction, their loss being responsible for the impairment in heart contractile function (Laflamme and Murry, 2005). The potential success of cardiac cell therapy relies almost completely on the ability of the implanted cells to differentiate toward mature cardiomyocytes. These cells must be able to reinforce the pumping activity of the injured heart in the absence of life-threatening arrhythmias due to electrophysiological incompatibility. Th…

Stem cells, cancer stem-like cells, and natural products.

2012

Somatic stem cells can be found in many rapidly regenerating tissues, e.g., the skin, gastrointestinal mucosa, and hematopoietic system, but are also present at low numbers in non-regenerative organs such as the heart and brain. In these organs, somatic stem cells aid in normal tissue homeostasis and repair after injury as well as self-renewal and the generation of specific progenitor cells during differentiation. Cancer stem-like cells are a small subpopulation of self-renewing cells that are able to proliferate upon appropriate stimulation and differentiate into heterogeneous lineages in tumors. Modulation of the behavior of normal tissue stem cells and cancer stem-like cells is an emergi…

Purinergic receptors influence the differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells

2011

Adult stem cells, including adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) or ectomesenchymal dental follicle cells (DFCs), attract considerable attention for their potential to differentiate into lineages, which are of major interest in the field of Regenerative Medicine. Purinergic receptors exert a wide range of biological actions in many cell and tissue types through extracellular nucleotides. Little is known about P2 receptors in adult stem cells and changes in their expression levels during differentiation. All known P2 receptors have been investigated, and a variety of P2X and P2Y receptor subtypes were detected in MSCs. Studies investigating intracellular calcium levels on rec…

Perinatal and Wharton's jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells in cartilage regenerative medicine and tissue engineering strategies

2011

Stem cells can be found in embryonic and extraembryonic tissues as well as in adult organs. In particular, research in the last few years has delineated the key features of perinatal stem cells derived from fetus-associated tissues. These cells show multiple differentiation potential, can be easily expanded ex vivo, and raise no ethical concerns as regards their use. Several reports indicate that cells isolated from Wharton's jelly (WJ), the main component of umbilical cord extracellular matrix, are multipotent stem cells that express markers shared by other mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and give rise to different mature cell types belonging to all three germ layers. Moreover, WJ-MSC display…

New frontiers in regenerative medicine in cardiology: the potential of Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells.

2013

Cardiomyopathies are still the first cause of death in the world. The identification of resident stem cells, comprising those derived from sub-endocardial stroma, suggests the possible self regeneration of the heart under autocrine/paracrine modulation in the cardiac microenvironment. Nevertheless, because of the limited in vivo regeneration potential of damaged cardiac tissue, the use of drugs and ultimately cardiac transplantation remain the common treatments of heart diseases and defects. The differentiative potential of embryonic and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from different tissues (such as bone marrow and adipose tissue) was extensively explored in cell therapy for regenera…