Nutrition and its role in epigenetic inheritance of obesity and diabetes across generations.

Nutritional constraints including not only caloric restriction or protein deficiency, but also energy-dense diets affect metabolic health and frequently lead to obesity and insulin resistance, as well as glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes. The effects of these environmental factors are often mediated via epigenetic modifiers that target the expression of metabolic genes. More recently, it was discovered that such parentally acquired metabolic changes can alter the metabolic health of the filial and grand-filial generations.

Cost-effectiveness of superabsorbent wound dressing versus standard of care in patients with moderate-to-highly exuding leg ulcers.

Objective: To determine the cost-effectiveness/utility of a superabsorbent wound dressing (Zetuvit Plus Silicone) versus the current standard of care (SoC) dressings, from the NHS perspective in England, in patients with moderate-to-high exudating leg ulcers.

Method: A model-based economic evaluation was conducted to analyse the cost-effectiveness/utility of a new intervention. We used a microsimulation state-transition model with a time horizon of six months and a cycle length of one week.

Clinical assessment of a foam dressing containing growth factor-enhancing hydrated polyurethanes.

Objective: This study assesses a novel dressing concept in venous leg ulcer (VLU) patients. It is based on boosting endogenous growth factor activities synthesised by functional granulation tissue.

Methods: Patients received treatment for eight weeks with a hydrated polyurethane-containing foam dressing plus concomitant compression therapy.

Comparative Degradomics of Porcine and Human Wound Exudates Unravels Biomarker Candidates for Assessment of Wound Healing Progression in Trauma Patients.

Impaired cutaneous wound healing is a major complication in elderly people and patients suffering from diabetes, the rate of which is rising in industrialized countries. Heterogeneity of clinical manifestations hampers effective molecular diagnostics and decisions for appropriate therapeutic regimens. Using a customized positional quantitative proteomics workflow, we have established a time-resolved proteome and N-terminome resource from wound exudates in a clinically relevant pig wound model that we exploited as a robust template to interpret a heterogeneous dataset from patients undergoing the same wound treatment.

Temperature- and nitrogen source-dependent regulation of GlnR target genes in Listeria monocytogenes.

The ubiquitous pathogen Listeria monocytogenes lives either saprophytically in the environment or within cells in a vertebrate host, thus adapting its lifestyle to its ecological niche. Growth experiments at 24 and 37 °C (environmental and host temperature) with ammonium or glutamine as nitrogen sources revealed that ammonium is the preferred nitrogen source of L. monocytogenes.

Short peptides act as inducers, anti-inducers and corepressors of Tet repressor.

Protein allostery plays a pivotal role in many regulatory processes. Prominent examples are cell-surface receptors, which allosterically transmit ligand-generated signals to their cytoplasmic domains, or bacterial transcription factors, which alternate between a free conformation and a DNA-bound conformation in response to binding an effector molecule. The bacterial transcription factor Tet repressor (TetR) belongs to the latter category and is regarded as highly adapted to tetracyclines (tc's) as effectors.

[Study of the toxicity of povidone-lodine for fibroblast-like cells (BALB-3T3) and primary human chondrocytes].

Povidone-iodine (polyvinyl-pyrrolidone-iodine complex, PVP-iodine, CAS 25655-41-8) is a commonly used antiseptic because of its broad spectrum of antimicrobial effect and its comparatively low allergic risk. It is also used for open joint lavage. Animal and organ culture studies provide controversial results about the risk of cartilage damage due to povidone-iodine.

Signal transduction pathways involved in mechanotransduction in bone cells.

Several in vivo and in vitro studies with different loading regimens showed that mechanical stimuli have an influence on proliferation and differentiation of bone cells. Prerequisite for this influence is the transduction of mechanical signals into the cell, a phenomenon that is termed mechanotransduction, which is essential for the maintenance of skeletal homeostasis in adults. Mechanoreceptors, such as the integrins, cadherins, and stretch-activated Ca2+ channels, together with various signal transduction pathways, are involved in the mechanotransduction process that ultimately regulates gene expression in the nucleus.

Signal transduction pathways involved in mechanical regulation of HB-GAM expression in osteoblastic cells.

Protein kinase C (PKC), protein kinase A (PKA), prostaglandin synthesis, and various mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) have been reported to be activated in bone cells by mechanical loading. We studied the involvement of these signal transduction pathways in the downregulation of HB-GAM expression in osteoblastic cells after cyclic stretching. Specific antagonists and agonists of these signal transduction pathways were added to cells before loading and to non-loaded control cells.

Mitogens are increased in the systemic circulation during bone callus healing.

Unlabelled: The influence of mechanical tissue strain caused by flexible fracture fixation on the systemic occurrence of systemic mitogens during callus healing was investigated. For this purpose the mitogenic capacity and growth factor concentration of sera from patients undergoing fracture treatment were determined. Sera from 9 patients whose fractures had been stabilized by external fixation were collected before and during fracture treatment.

A scanning electron microscopy study of human osteoblast morphology on five orthopedic metals.

Despite the long-standing use of metals as orthopedic implants there still are unsolved problems with these materials and open questions about their behavior in a biological environment. Cell-culture studies provide a useful tool for investigations. In addition to the determination of biochemical or molecular biological parameters, the morphology of adhering cells reflects their interaction with the substrata.

Proliferation of human-derived osteoblast-like cells depends on the cycle number and frequency of uniaxial strain.

We tested the hypothesis whether the number of applied load cycles and the frequency of uniaxial strain have an effect on proliferation of human bone derived osteoblast-like cells. A new approach was developed in order to differentiate between the effects of frequency and the effects of cycle number and strain duration. Monolayers of subconfluently grown cells were stretched in rectangular silicone dishes with cyclic predominantly uniaxial movement along there longitudinal axes.