An increase in inflammation and islet dysfunction is a feature of prediabetes.

Aims: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a global health problem that will be diagnosed in almost 300 million people by 2025 according to the World Health Organization. Before being diagnosed with T2D, individuals may have glucose levels above normal but below the diabetic range. This condition is known as prediabetes.

Human Placenta-Derived ECM Supports Tri-Lineage Differentiation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) hold great promise for future applications in drug discovery and cell therapies. hPSC culture protocols require specific substrates and medium supplements to support cell expansion and lineage specific differentiation. The animal origin of these substrates is a severe limitation when considering the translation of hPSC derivatives to the clinic and disease modeling.

3D Bioprinted Osteogenic Tissue Models for In Vitro Drug Screening.

Metabolic bone disease affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and as a result, in vitro models of bone tissue have become essential tools to help analyze bone pathogenesis, develop drug screening, and test potential therapeutic strategies. Drugs that either promote or impair bone formation are in high demand for the treatment of metabolic bone diseases. These drugs work by targeting numerous signaling pathways responsible for regulating osteogenesis such as Hedgehog, Wnt/β-catenin, and PI3K-AKT.

Scaffold-free bioprinted osteogenic and chondrogenic systems to model osteochondral physiology.

Three-dimensional bioprinted culture platforms mimic the native microenvironment of tissues more accurately than two-dimensional cell cultures or animal models. Scaffold-free bioprinting eliminates many complications associated with traditional scaffold-dependent printing as well as provides better cell-to-cell interactions and long-term functionality. In this study, constructs were produced from bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) using a scaffold-free bioprinter.

Human placenta hydrogel reduces scarring in a rat model of cardiac ischemia and enhances cardiomyocyte and stem cell cultures.

Introduction: Xenogeneic extracellular matrix (ECM) hydrogels have shown promise in remediating cardiac ischemia damage in animal models, yet analogous human ECM hydrogels have not been well development. An original human placenta-derived hydrogel (hpECM) preparation was thus generated for assessment in cardiomyocyte cell culture and therapeutic cardiac injection applications.

Methods And Results: Hybrid orbitrap-quadrupole mass spectrometry and ELISAs showed hpECM to be rich in collagens, basement membrane proteins, and regenerative growth factors (e.

Multiple roles of soluble sugars in the establishment of Gunnera-Nostoc endosymbiosis.

Gunnera plants have the unique ability to form endosymbioses with N(2)-fixing cyanobacteria, primarily Nostoc. Cyanobacteria enter Gunnera through transiently active mucilage-secreting glands on stems. We took advantage of the nitrogen (N)-limitation-induced gland development in Gunnera manicata to identify factors that may enable plant tissue to attract and maintain cyanobacteria colonies.