Publications by authors named "Fiona Louis"

Article Synopsis
  • Skin macrophages are crucial in how the skin reacts to external factors, and human skin equivalents (HSEs) with THP-1 cells help study this interaction.
  • Research showed that THP-1 cells in HSEs have changes in gene expression related to extracellular matrix and DNA replication when exposed to UVA light, causing damage like DNA double-strand breaks.
  • Applying a protective agent, mycosporine-2-glycine, reduced these DNA damages and inflammation, indicating that HSEs are a valuable tool for studying skin-macrophage responses to various stimuli.
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Obesity and its associated comorbidities place a substantial burden on public health. Given the considerable potential of brown adipose tissue in addressing metabolic disorders that contribute to dysregulation of the body's energy balance, this area is an intriguing avenue for research. This study aimed to assess the impact of various polymers, including collagen type I, fibronectin, laminin, gelatin, gellan gum, and poly-l-lysine (PLL), on the brown adipogenic differentiation of dedifferentiated fat cells within a fibrin gel matrix.

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Obesity and its related health issues significantly burden public health systems. Brown adipose tissue holds promise for addressing metabolic disorders and balancing the body's energy, making it a key research focus. Stimulating brown adipogenesis from stem cells could advance regenerative medicine and healthcare.

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In developing three-dimensional (3D) human skin equivalents (HSEs), preventing dermis and epidermis layer distortion due to the contraction of hydrogels by fibroblasts is a challenging issue. Previously, a fabrication method of HSEs was tested using a modified solid scaffold or a hydrogel matrix in combination with the natural polymer coated onto the tissue culture surface, but the obtained HSEs exhibited skin layer contraction and loss of the skin integrity and barrier functions. In this study, we investigated the method of HSE fabrication that enhances the stability of the skin model by using surface plasma treatment.

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Reprogramming of mature adipocytes is an attractive research area due to the plasticity of these cells. Mature adipocytes can be reprogrammed , transforming them into dedifferentiated fat cells (DFATs), which are considered a new type of stem cell, and thereby have a high potential for use in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, there are still no reports or findings on controlling the dedifferentiation.

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The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a type of capillary network characterized by a highly selective barrier, which restricts the transport of substances between the blood and nervous system. Numerous models of the BBB have been developed for drug testing, but a BBB model with controllable capillary structures remains a major challenge. In this study, we report for the first time a unique method of controlling the blood capillary networks and characteristic holes formation in a BBB model by varying the elastic modulus of a three-dimensional scaffold.

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Since the current process of livestock meat production has considerable effects on the global environment, leading to high emissions of greenhouse gases, cultured meat has recently attracted attention as a suitable alternative way to acquire animal proteins. However, while most published studies on cell-cultured meat have focused on muscle tissue culture, fat production which is an important component of the process has often been neglected from this technology, even though it can enhance the meat's final taste, aroma, tenderness, texture, and palatability. In this study, we focused on bovine muscle reconstruction by monitoring and optimizing the possible expansion rate of isolated primary bovine adipose stem cells and their adipogenesis differentiation to be fully edible for cultured meat application.

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Embedded extrusion printing facilitates the fabrication of complex biological structures using soft hydrogels that are challenging to construct using conventional manufacturing methods. While this targeting strategy is appealing, the residues of support materials on the printed objects have been overlooked. Here, we quantitatively compare the bath residues on fibrin gel fibers printed in granular gel baths that are conjugated with fluorescent probes for visualization, including physically crosslinked gellan gum (GG) and gelatin (GEL) baths and chemically crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol baths.

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Recent advances in adipose tissue engineering and cell biology have led to the development of innovative therapeutic strategies in regenerative medicine for adipose tissue reconstruction. To date, the many and models developed for vascularized adipose tissue engineering cover a wide range of research areas, including studies with cells of various origins and types, polymeric scaffolds of natural and synthetic derivation, models presented using decellularized tissues, and scaffold-free approaches. In this review, studies on adipose tissue types with different functions, characteristics and body locations have been summarized with 3D fabrication approaches.

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Soft tissue regeneration remains a challenge in reconstructive surgery. So far, both autologous fat implantations and artificial implants methods used in clinical applications lead to various disadvantages and limited lifespan. To overcome these limitations and improve the graft volume maintenance, reproducing a mature adipose tissue already including vasculature structure before implantation can be the solution.

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blood vessels imaging is crucial to study blood vessels related diseases in real-time. For this purpose, fluorescent based imaging is one of the utmost techniques for imaging a living system. The discovery of a new near-infrared probe (CyA-B2) by screening chemical probe library in our previous report which showed the most specific binding on the blood capillaries of the 3D-tissue models give us interest to study more about the binding site of this probe to the surface of endothelial cells main component cell of blood capillaries.

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The blood-brain barrier (BBB), a selective barrier formed by brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMEC), represents a major challenge for the efficient accumulation of pharmaceutical drugs into the brain. The receptor-mediated transcytosis (RMT) has recently gained increasing interest for pharmaceutical industry as it shows a great potential to shuttle large-sized therapeutic cargos across the BBB. Confirming the presence of the RMT pathway by BMEC is therefore important for the screening of peptides or antibody libraries that bind RMT receptors.

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Blood vessels are present in all of the organs, reflecting their importance for oxygen and nutrient delivery to the cells. Until now, no organic fluorophore has been reported for the live imaging of endothelium although the layer is the key to blood vessel functions. Here, the discovery of a blood vessel organic probe at near-infrared (NIR) wavelength range (BV-NIR) through an engineered blood capillary-based screening system, which is a more physiological model than a conventional cell culture condition, is reported.

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Obesity is a complex and incompletely understood disease, but current drug screening strategies mostly rely on immature adipose models which cannot recapitulate it properly. To address this issue, we developed a statistically validated high-throughput screening model by seeding human mature adipocytes from patients, encapsulated in physiological collagen microfibers. These drop tissues ensured the maintenance of adipocyte viability and functionality for controlling glucose and fatty acids uptake, as well as glycerol release.

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With the current interest in cultured meat, mammalian cell-based meat has mostly been unstructured. There is thus still a high demand for artificial steak-like meat. We demonstrate in vitro construction of engineered steak-like tissue assembled of three types of bovine cell fibers (muscle, fat, and vessel).

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There is a need in plastic surgery to prepare autologous adipocytes that can be transplanted in patients to reconstruct soft tissue defects caused by tumor resection, including breast cancer, and by trauma and other diseases. Direct conversion of somatic cells into adipocytes may allow sufficient functional adipocytes to be obtained for use in regeneration therapy. Chemical libraries of 10,800 molecules were screened for the ability to induce lipid accumulation in human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) in culture.

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The development of soft tissue regeneration has recently gained importance due to safety concerns about artificial breast implants. Current autologous fat graft implantations can result in up to 90% of volume loss in long-term outcomes due to their limited revascularization. Adipose tissue has a highly vascularized structure which enables its proper homeostasis as well as its endocrine function.

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Conventional microarray analysis usually deals with the monolayer or two-dimensional (2D) assays for the high-throughput screening applications. Even though these cell-based assays are effective for preliminary screening at least to have information on cytotoxicity, they do not adequately re-create the in vivo complexity of three-dimensional (3D) tissues. In this study, 3D-blood capillary models were constructed by using physiological collagen microfibers (CMF), which provide the extracellular matrix in the complex tissue.

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Skin aging cannot be escaped, being due to both intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli. They lead to a reduced extracellular collagen matrix in the dermis, along with a higher degradation by metalloproteases (MMPs) activity, as well as a lower differentiation and function of epidermis keratinocytes, characterized by wrinkling and loss of skin elasticity. One of the recent technology to overcome this skin aging process is the use of radiofrequency (RF) and ultrasound (US) technologies which use thermal stimulation to induce neocollagenesis in the skin.

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Although adipose tissue is one of the most abundant tissues of the human body, its reconstruction remains a competitive challenge. The conventional in vitro two or three-dimensional (2D or 3D) models of mature adipocytes unfortunately lead to their quick dedifferentiation after one week, and complete differentiation of adipose derived stem cells (ADSC) usually requires more than one month. In this context, we developed biomimetic 3D adipose tissues with high density collagen by mixing type I collagen microfibers with primary mouse mature adipocytes or human ADSC in transwells.

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In animal cells the specific translational control of proteins contributing to iron homeostasis is mediated by the interaction between the Iron Regulatory Proteins (IRP1 and IRP2) and the Iron Responsive Elements (IRE) located in the untranslated regions (UTR) of regulated messengers, such as those encoding ferritin or the transferrin receptor. The absolute concentrations of the components of this regulatory system in hematopoietic cells and the ability of the endogenous IRP to regulate exogenous IRE have been measured. The IRP concentration is in the low μM (10-6 M) range, whereas the most abundant IRE-containing messenger RNA (mRNA), i.

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Microgravity-related cytoskeletal disorganization is associated with an altered balance between osteoblastogenesis and adipogenesis of multipotent cells. Strontium chloride is known to increase osteoblastogenesis and repress adipogenesis, but its effects in microgravity-related conditions have not been established. Our goal was to investigate early events in this process, focusing on RhoGTPases as controllers of cytoskeletal organization leading to stem cell commitment.

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The lack of relevant in vitro models for adipose tissue makes necessary the development of a more physiological environment providing spatial and chemical cues for the effective maturation of adipocytes. We developed a biofunctionalized hydrogel with components of adipose extracellular matrix: collagen I, collagen VI, and the cell binding domain of fibronectin and we compared it to usual 2D cultures on plastic plates. This scaffold allowed 3D culture of mature adipocytes from the preadipocytes cell lines 3T3-L1 and 3T3-F442A, as well as primary Human White Preadipocytes (HWP), acquiring in vivo-like organization, with spheroid shaped adipocytes forming multicellular aggregates.

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A growing number of studies are revealing that cells reorganize their cytoskeleton when exposed to conditions of microgravity. Most, if not all, of the structural changes observed on flown cells can be explained by modulation of RhoGTPases, which are mechanosensitive switches responsible for cytoskeletal dynamics control. This review identifies general principles defining cell sensitivity to gravitational stresses.

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