Publications by authors named "Bernad A"

The adult mammalian heart has been demonstrated to be endowed with low but real turnover capacity, especially for cardiomyocytes, the key functional cell type. The source, however, of that turnover capacity remains controversial. In this regard, we have defined and characterized a resident multipotent cardiac mouse progenitor population, +DR (for + Damage-Responsive cells).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Oxidative stress-induced myocardial apoptosis and necrosis are critically involved in ischemic infarction, and several sources of extracellular vesicles appear to be enriched in therapeutic activities. The central objective was to identify and validate the differential exosome miRNA repertoire in human cardiac progenitor cells (CPC). CPC exosomes were first analyzed by LC-MS/MS and compared by RNAseq with exomes of human mesenchymal stromal cells and human fibroblasts to define their differential exosome miRNA repertoire (exo-miR).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity is the most severe collateral effect of chemotherapy originated by an excess of oxidative stress in cardiomyocytes that leads to cardiac dysfunction. We assessed clinical data from patients with breast cancer receiving anthracyclines and searched for discriminating microRNAs between patients that developed cardiotoxicity (cases) and those that did not (controls), using RNA sequencing and regression analysis. Serum levels of 25 microRNAs were differentially expressed in cases versus controls within the first year after anthracycline treatment, as assessed by three different regression models (elastic net, Robinson and Smyth exact negative binomial test and random forest).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Research on cardiac progenitor cell populations has generated expectations about their potential for cardiac regeneration capacity after acute myocardial infarction and during physiological aging; however, the endogenous capacity of the adult mammalian heart is limited. The modest efficacy of exogenous cell-based treatments can guide the development of new approaches that, alone or in combination, can be applied to boost clinical efficacy. The identification and manipulation of the adult stem cell environment, termed niche, will be critical for providing new evidence on adult stem cell populations and improving stem-cell-based therapies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Clinical trials evaluating cardiac progenitor cells (CPC) demonstrated feasibility and safety, but no clear functional benefits. Therefore a deeper understanding of CPC biology is warranted to inform strategies capable to enhance their therapeutic potential. Here we have defined, using a label-free proteomic approach, the differential cytoplasmic and nuclear compartments of human CPC (hCPC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human cardiac progenitor cells (hCPC) are considered a good candidate in cell therapy for ischemic heart disease, demonstrating capacity to improve functional recovery after myocardial infarction (MI), both in small and large preclinical animal models. However, improvements are required in terms of cell engraftment and efficacy. Based on previously published reports, insulin-growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) have demonstrated substantial cardioprotective, repair and regeneration activities, so they are good candidates to be evaluated in large animal model of MI.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To determine the usefulness of the in vitro and in vivo methods used in the diagnosis of kiwifruit allergy and to specifically assess the impact of seed proteins on sensitivity.

Methods: We performed skin prick tests (SPTs) using various commercial extracts, homemade pulp, and seed extracts and prick-prick tests with kiwifruit on 36 allergic patients. The presence of specific IgE (sIgE) was assessed using the ImmunoCAP (kiwifruit extract), ELISA (Act d 1, Act d 2), ISAC, and FABER assays.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) and cardiac progenitor/stem cells (CPCs) have been extensively studied as a potential therapeutic treatment for myocardial infarction (MI). Previous reports suggest that lower doses of CPCs are needed to improve cardiac function relative to their bone marrow counterparts. Here, we confirmed this observations and investigated the surface protein expression profile that might explain this effect.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Body care and development of the premature infant. The observation of newborns' reactions to different stimulations enables their behaviour to be interpreted and the support provided to be adjusted. Developmental care such as swaddling, tucked posture and skin-to-skin contact favours the harmonious development of premature infants and encourages the parents to become involved in their care as early as possible.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Allogeneic cardiac-derived progenitor cells (CPC) without immunosuppression could provide an effective ancillary therapy to improve cardiac function in reperfused myocardial infarction. We set out to perform a comprehensive preclinical feasibility and safety evaluation of porcine CPC (pCPC) in the infarcted porcine model, analyzing biodistribution and mid-term efficacy, as well as safety in healthy non-infarcted swine.

Methods: The expression profile of several pCPC isolates was compared with humans using both FACS and RT-qPCR.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adult cardiac progenitor/stem cells (CPC/CSC) are multipotent resident populations involved in cardiac homeostasis and heart repair. Assisted by complementary RNAseq analysis, we defined the fraction of the CPC proteome associable with specific functions by comparison with human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), the reference population for cell therapy, and human dermal fibroblasts (HDF), as a distant reference. Label-free proteomic analysis identified 526 proteins expressed differentially in CPC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adult progenitor cells reside in specialized microenvironments which maintain their undifferentiated cell state and trigger regenerative responses following injury. Although these environments are well described in several tissues, the cellular components that comprise the cardiac environment where progenitor cells are located remain unknown. Here we use Bmi1 and Bmi1 mice as genetic tools to trace cardiac damage-responsive cells throughout the mouse lifespan.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Human adult adipose-derived stem cells (hADSCs) have become the most promising cell source for regenerative medicine. However the prolonged ex vivo expansion periods required to obtain the necessary therapeutic dose promotes progressive senescence, with the concomitant reduction of their therapeutic potential.

Aim And Scope: A better understanding of the determinants of hADSC senescence is needed to improve biosafety while preserving therapeutic efficiency.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Disease-modifying therapies are thought to reduce the conversion rate to secondary progressive multiple sclerosis.

Objective: To explore the rate, chronology, and contributing factors of conversion to the progressive phase in treated relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients.

Methods: Our study included 204 patients treated for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis between 1995 and 2002, prospectively followed to date.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective- Cardiac progenitor cells reside in the heart in adulthood, although their physiological relevance remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that after myocardial infarction, adult Bmi1 (B lymphoma Mo-MLV insertion region 1 homolog [PCGF4]) cardiac cells are a key progenitor-like population in cardiac neovascularization during ventricular remodeling. Approach and Results- These cells, which have a strong in vivo differentiation bias, are a mixture of endothelial- and mesenchymal-related cells with in vitro spontaneous endothelial cell differentiation capacity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is associated with several cardiovascular pathologies and with cell cycle exit by neonanatal cardiomyocytes, a key limiting factor in the regenerative capacity of the adult mammalian heart. The polycomb complex component BMI1 is linked to adult progenitors and is an important partner in DNA repair and redox regulation. We found that high BMI1 expression is associated with an adult Sca1 cardiac progenitor sub-population with low ROS levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Studies in recent years have established that the principal effects in cardiac cell therapy are associated with paracrine/autocrine factors. We combined several complementary techniques to define human cardiac progenitor cell (CPC) secretome constituted by 914 proteins/genes; 51% of these are associated with the exosomal compartment. To define the set of proteins specifically or highly differentially secreted by CPC, we compared human mesenchymal stem cells and dermal fibroblasts; the study defined a group of growth factors, cytokines and chemokines expressed at high to medium levels by CPC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Stem cell therapy has increased the therapeutic armamentarium in the fight against ischemic heart disease and heart failure. The administration of exogenous stem cells has been investigated in patients suffering an acute myocardial infarction, with the final aim of salvaging jeopardized myocardium and preventing left ventricular adverse remodeling and functional deterioration. However, phase I and II clinical trials with autologous and first-generation stem cells have yielded inconsistent benefits and mixed results.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) is the main mechanism for double strand break (DSB) DNA repair. The error-prone DNA polymerase mu (Polμ) is involved in immunoglobulin variable region rearrangement and in general, NHEJ in non-lymphoid cells. Deletion of NHEJ factors in P53 mice, which are highly prone to development of T cell lymphoma, generally increases cancer incidence and shifts the tumor spectrum towards aggressive pro-B lymphoma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The dermal Panniculus carnosus (PC) muscle is important for wound contraction in lower mammals and represents an interesting model of muscle regeneration due to its high cell turnover. The resident satellite cells (the bona fide muscle stem cells) remain poorly characterized. Here we analyzed PC satellite cells with regard to developmental origin and purported function.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

MicroRNAs (miR) have considerable potential as therapeutic tools in cardiac diseases. Alterations in atrial miR are involved in the development of atrial fibrillation (AF), but the molecular mechanism underlying their contribution to atrial remodeling in chronic atrial fibrillation (CAF) is only partially understood. Here we used miR array to analyze the miR profile of atrial biopsies from sinus rhythm (SR) and CAF patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF