Human Bronchial Epithelial Cell Growth on Homologous Versus Heterologous Tissue Extracellular Matrix.

Background: Extracellular matrix (ECM) bioscaffolds produced by decellularization of source tissue have been effectively used for numerous clinical applications. However, decellularized tracheal constructs have been unsuccessful due to the immediate requirement of a functional airway epithelium on surgical implantation. ECM can be solubilized to form hydrogels that have been shown to support growth of many different cell types.

Regenerative Medicine: lessons from Mother Nature.

Regenerative medicine strategies for the restoration of functional tissue have evolved from the concept of ex vivo creation of engineered tissue toward the broader concept of in vivo induction of functional tissue reconstruction. Multidisciplinary approaches are being investigated to achieve this goal using evolutionarily conserved principles of stem cell biology, developmental biology and immunology, current methods of engineering and medicine. This evolution from ex vivo tissue engineering to the manipulation of fundamental in vivo tenets of development and regeneration has the potential to capitalize upon the incredibly complex and only partially understood ability of cells to adapt, proliferate, self-organize and differentiate into functional tissue.

Abdominal adiposity correlates with adenotonsillectomy outcome in obese adolescents with severe obstructive sleep apnea.

Background. Obese adolescents with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) have a unique pathophysiology that combines adenotonsillar hypertrophy and increased visceral fat distribution. We hypothesized that in this population waist circumference (WC), as a clinical marker of abdominal fat distribution, correlates with the likelihood of response to AT.

Macrophage phenotype as a determinant of biologic scaffold remodeling.

Macrophage phenotype can be characterized as proinflammatory (M1) or immunomodulatory and tissue remodeling (M2). The present study used a rat model to determine the macrophage phenotype at the site of implantation of two biologic scaffolds that were derived from porcine small intestinal submucosa (SIS) and that differed mainly according to their method of processing: the Restore device (SIS) and the CuffPatch device (carbodiimide crosslinked form of porcine-derived SIS (CDI-SIS)). An autologous tissue graft was used as a control implant.

Maintenance of hepatic sinusoidal endothelial cell phenotype in vitro using organ-specific extracellular matrix scaffolds.

Sinusoidal endothelial cells (SECs) are notoriously difficult to culture in vitro. SECs represent a highly specialized endothelial cell (EC) population, and traditional methods of SEC isolation from the liver initiate a process of SEC dedifferentiation. Acellular extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffolds were investigated in a physiologically relevant in vitro culture model for their ability to maintain SEC phenotype.