Phytochemical evaluation, embryotoxic, and teratogenic effects of Buwakan (Decalobanthus peltatus (L.) A.R.Simões & Staples) leaf extracts on duck embryo.

Decalobanthus peltatus is a woody vine that is commonly utilized in traditional Southeast Asian medicinal preparations. Despite the documented therapeutic uses of D. peltatus, there is hardly any information regarding its toxic effects on its consumers.

Reducing mitomycin-C-induced ROS levels in mouse feeder cells improves induced pluripotent stem cell colony growth.

Chemically defined stem cell culture media are often costly, and the use of mitotically arrested mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) as feeder cells is a popular and cost-efficient way to maintain induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). However, the commonly used mitotic inhibitor mitomycin-C (MMC) is known to cause cellular metabolic stress. Therefore, our aim was to determine whether such stress in feeder cells indirectly affects iPSC growth during coculture.

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene correction in hemophilia B patient-derived iPSCs.

The clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas) system is an efficient genome-editing tool that holds potential for gene therapy. Here, we report an application of this system for gene repair in hemophilia B (HB) using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). We prepared targeting plasmids with homology arms containing corrected sequences to repair an in-frame deletion in exon 2 of the factor IX (F9) gene and transfected patient-derived iPSCs with the Cas9 nuclease and a guide RNA expression vector.

Functional analysis of ectodermal β-catenin during external genitalia formation.

β-catenin is a molecule belonging to the armadillo family of proteins that is a crucial core-component of cellular adherens junctions, and a component of the canonical Wnt-signaling pathway. We attempted to analyze the functional significance of ectodermal-derived β-catenin during the development of the mouse genital tubercle, a mammalian anlage of the external genitalia. For this purpose, the conditional loss of function mouse mutant Wnt7a-Cre;β-cat(f/f) was utilized.