"Smart Knee Implants: An Overview of Current Technologies and Future Possibilities".

Background: This article focuses on clinical implementation of smart knee implants for total knee replacement and the future development of smart implant technology. With the number of total knee replacements undertaken growing worldwide, smart implants incorporating embedded sensor technology offer opportunity to improve post-operative recovery, reducing implant failure rates, and increasing overall patient satisfaction.

Methods: A literature review on smart implants, historical prototypes, current clinically available smart implants, and the future potential for conventional implant instrumentation with embedded sensors and electronics was undertaken.

Endothelin-1 as a Mediator of Heme Oxygenase-1-Induced Stemness in Colorectal Cancer: Influence of p53.

Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is an antioxidant protein implicated in tumor progression, metastasis, and resistance to therapy. Elevated HO-1 expression is associated with stemness in several types of cancer, although this aspect has not yet been studied in colorectal cancer (CRC). Using an in vitro model, we demonstrated that HO-1 overexpression regulates stemness and resistance to 5-FU treatment, regardless of p53.

Membrane binding controls ordered self-assembly of animal septins.

Septins are conserved cytoskeletal proteins that regulate cell cortex mechanics. The mechanisms of their interactions with the plasma membrane remain poorly understood. Here, we show by cell-free reconstitution that binding to flat lipid membranes requires electrostatic interactions of septins with anionic lipids and promotes the ordered self-assembly of fly septins into filamentous meshworks.

Changes in microtubule overlap length regulate kinesin-14-driven microtubule sliding.

Microtubule-crosslinking motor proteins, which slide antiparallel microtubules, are required for the remodeling of microtubule networks. Hitherto, all microtubule-crosslinking motors have been shown to slide microtubules at a constant velocity until no overlap remains between them, leading to the breakdown of the initial microtubule geometry. Here, we show in vitro that the sliding velocity of microtubules, driven by human kinesin-14 HSET, decreases when microtubules start to slide apart, resulting in the maintenance of finite-length microtubule overlaps.

Nano-antenna enhanced two-focus fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.

We propose two-focus fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (2fFCS) on basis of plasmonic nanoantennas that provide distinct hot spots that are individually addressable through polarization, yet lie within a single diffraction limited microscope focus. The importance of two-focus FCS is that a calibrated distance between foci provides an intrinsic calibration to derive diffusion constants from measured correlation times. Through electromagnetic modelling we analyze a geometry of perpendicular nanorods, and their inverse, i.