A Novel Approach of Harvesting Viable Single Cells from Donor Corneal Endothelium for Cell-Injection Therapy.

Donor corneas with low endothelial cell densities (ECD) are deemed unsuitable for corneal endothelial transplantation. This study evaluated a two-step incubation and dissociation harvesting approach to isolate single corneal endothelial cells (CECs) from donor corneas for corneal endothelial cell-injection (CE-CI) therapy. To isolate CECs directly from donor corneas, optimization studies were performed where donor Descemet's membrane/corneal endothelium (DM/CE) were peeled and incubated in either M4-F99 or M5-Endo media before enzymatic digestion.

Functional differences between healthy and diabetic endothelial cells on topographical cues.

The endothelial lining of blood vessels is severely affected in type II diabetes. Yet, there is still a paucity on the use of diabetic endothelial cells for study and assessment of implantable devices targeting vascular disease. This critically impairs our ability to determine appropriate topographical cues to be included in implantable devices that can be used to maintain or improve endothelial cell function in vivo.

Microlens topography combined with vascular endothelial growth factor induces endothelial differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells into vasculogenic progenitors.

Cell therapy for vascular damage has been showing promises as alternative therapy for endothelial dysfunctions since the discovery of the endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). However, isolated EPCs from peripheral blood yield low cell amounts and alternative cell source must be explored. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of topography on the endothelial differentiation of an alternative cell source - human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) from bone marrow.

Exploiting the protein corona around gold nanorods for low-dose combined photothermal and photodynamic therapy.

A nanodevice comprising human serum (HS) protein corona coated gold nanorods (NRs) has been developed to perform both photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) simultaneously at a very low dose under irradiation by a single laser. Here, we exploit the protein corona to load a photosensitizer, chlorin e6 (Ce6), to form NR-HS-Ce6, whose excitation wavelength matches with the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of NRs. When excited by a single laser, the NRs caused photothermal ablation of cancer cells while Ce6 simultaneously produced reactive oxygen species (ROS) to kill cancer cells through oxidative stress in PDT.

Nanoparticle interface to biology: applications in probing and modulating biological processes.

Nanomaterials can be considered as "pseudo" subcellular entities that are similar to endogenous biomolecules because of their size and ability to interact with other biomolecules. The interaction between nanoparticles and biomolecules gives rise to the nano-bio interface between a nanoparticle and its biological environment. This is often defined in terms of the biomolecules that are present on the surface of the nanoparticles.