A Method for Fabricating Tissue-Specific Extracellular Matrix Blocks From Decellularized Tissue Powders.

Decellularized tissues retain the extracellular matrix (ECM), shape, and composition that are unique to the source tissue. Previous studies using decellularized tissue lysates and powders have shown that tissue-specific ECM plays a key role in cellular function and wound healing. However, creating decellularized tissues composed of tissue-specific ECM with customizable shapes and structures for use as scaffolding materials remains challenging.

Induction of osteogenic differentiation by the extracellular matrix of fetal bone tissues and adult cartilage.

Decellularized cortical bone powder derived from adult animals has been shown to induce bone remodeling. Furthermore, it is increasingly evident that the extracellular matrix (ECM) within decellularized tissues differs depending on the source tissue and the age of the animal, leading to distinct effects on cells. In this study, we prepared powders from decellularized fetal and adult porcine bone tissues and conducted biological analyses to determine if the decellularized tissue could induce adipose-derived stem cell differentiation.

Acellular matrix derived from rat liver improves the functionality of rat pancreatic islets before or after vitrification.

Cryopreservation of pancreatic islets can overcome the severe shortage of islet donors in clinical islet transplantation, but the impaired quality of post-warm islets need improvement. This present study was conducted to investigate whether the pre- or post-treatment of rat islets with liver decellularized matrix (LDM) for vitrification can improve the viability (FDA/PI double staining) and the functionality (glucose-stimulated insulin secretion [GSIS] assay). Rat LDM was prepared by high-hydrostatic pressure, lyophilization, and re-suspension in saline.

Large-scale vortex lattice emerging from collectively moving microtubules.

Spontaneous collective motion, as in some flocks of bird and schools of fish, is an example of an emergent phenomenon. Such phenomena are at present of great interest and physicists have put forward a number of theoretical results that so far lack experimental verification. In animal behaviour studies, large-scale data collection is now technologically possible, but data are still scarce and arise from observations rather than controlled experiments.

Juggling motion in a system of motile coupled oscillators.

A particular dynamic steady state emerging in the swarm oscillator model--a system of interacting motile elements with an internal degree of freedom--is presented. In the state, elements form a rotating triangle whose corners appear to catch and throw elements. This motion is referred to as "juggling motion" in this paper.

Dimensionality of clusters in a swarm oscillator model.

We investigate what is called swarm oscillator model where interacting motile oscillators form various kinds of ordered structures. We particularly focus on the dimensionality of clusters which oscillators form. In two-dimensional space, oscillators spontaneously form one-dimensional clusters or two-dimensional clusters.

Hierarchical cluster structures in a one-dimensional swarm oscillator model.

Swarm oscillator model derived by one of the authors (Tanaka), where interacting motile elements form various kinds of patterns, is investigated. We particularly focus on the cluster patterns in one-dimensional space. We mathematically derive all static and stable configurations in final states for a particular but a large set of parameters.

Arnold tongue of electrochemical nonlinear oscillators.

We study the Arnold tongue of a nonlinear electrochemical oscillator entrained to an electrical periodic forcing. In our system, the width of the 1:3 entrainment region was broader than that of the 1:2 region. The 1:1 and 1:3 regions became monotonically broad when the conductance of the electrode cell was increased by the electrochemical redox reaction of Fe(CN)(6)(4-) <==> Fe(CN)(6)(3-) + e.

General chemotactic model of oscillators.

We propose a general chemotactic model describing a system of interacting elements. Each element in this model exhibits internal dynamics, and there exists a nonlinear coupling between elements that depends on their internal states. From this model, we derive a simpler model describing the phases and positions of the chemotactic elements by means of center-manifold and phase-reduction methods.

Global structure in spatiotemporal chaos of the Matthews-Cox equations.

We find that an amplitude death state and a spatiotemporally chaotic state coexist spontaneously in the Matthews-Cox equations and this coexistence is robust. Although the entire system is far from equilibrium, the domain wall between the two states is stabilized by a negative-feedback effect due to a conservation law. This is analogous to the phase separation in conserved systems that exhibit spinodal decompositions.

Critical exponents of Nikolaevskii turbulence.

We study the spatial power spectra of Nikolaevskii turbulence in one-dimensional space. First, we show that the energy distribution in wave-number space is extensive in nature. Then, we demonstrate that, when varying a particular parameter, the spectrum becomes qualitatively indistinguishable from that of Kuramoto-Sivashinsky turbulence.

Robustness of the noise-induced phase synchronization in a general class of limit cycle oscillators.

We show that a wide class of uncoupled limit-cycle oscillators can be in-phase synchronized by common weak additive noise. An expression of the Lyapunov exponent is analytically derived to study the stability of the noise-driven synchronizing state. The result shows that such a synchronization can be achieved in a broad class of oscillators with little constraint on their intrinsic property.

Chemical turbulence equivalent to Nikolavskii turbulence.

We find evidence that a certain class of reaction-diffusion (RD) systems can exhibit chemical turbulence equivalent to Nikolaevskii turbulence. We study an extended complex Ginzburg-Landau (CGL) equation derived from this class of RD systems. First, we show numerically that the power spectrum of this CGL equation, in the neighborhood of a codimension-two Turing-Benjamin-Feir point, is qualitatively quite similar to that of the Nikolaevskii equation.

Complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with nonlocal coupling.

A Ginzburg-Landau-type equation with nonlocal coupling is derived systematically as a reduced form of a universal class of reaction-diffusion systems near the Hopf bifurcation point and in the presence of another small parameter. The reaction-diffusion systems to be reduced are such that the chemical components constituting local oscillators are nondiffusive or hardly diffusive, so that the oscillators are almost uncoupled, while there is an extra diffusive component which introduces effective nonlocal coupling over the oscillators. Linear stability analysis of the reduced equation about the uniform oscillation is also carried out.