Residual immune response towards decellularized homografts may be highly individual.

Objectives: Decellularized homograft valves (DHVs) have shown promising clinical results, particularly in the treatment of congenital heart disease. However, DHV appears to elicit an immune response in a subset of young patients, indicated by early valve degeneration. As the decellularization process is quality controlled for each DHV, we hypothesized that there may be residual immunogenicity within the extracellular matrix of DHV.

Dot blots of solubilized extracellular matrix allow quantification of human antibodies bound to epitopes present in decellularized porcine pulmonary heart valves.

Background: The present study reports the development of a sensitive dot blot protocol for determining the level of preformed antibodies against porcine heart valve tissue derived from wild-type (WT) and α-Gal-KO (GGTA1-KO) pigs in human sera.

Methods: The assay uses decellularized and solubilized heart valve tissue; antibody binding found in this dot blot assay could be correlated with antibody titers of preformed anti-α-Gal and anti-Neu5Gc antibodies detected by a sensitive ELISA.

Results: The ultimate protocol had an inter-assay variance of 9.

In the corner of the eye: camouflaging motion in the peripheral visual field.

Most animals need to move, and motion will generally break camouflage. In many instances, most of the visual field of a predator does not fall within a high-resolution area of the retina and so, when an undetected prey moves, that motion will often be in peripheral vision. We investigate how this can be exploited by prey, through different patterns of movement, to reduce the accuracy with which the predator can locate a cryptic prey item when it subsequently orients towards a target.

Evolution, development, and initial function of the mammalian neocortex: response of the germinal zones to endothermy.

In the mouse the release of neocortical neurons from the periventricular germinal layers of the forebrain commences towards the ventral margin of the lateral pallium at the level of the interventricular foramen and is propagated from there across the lateral wall of the hemisphere. In the adult cortex the origin of the gradient corresponded to the ventral portion of the somatotopic map of the body, that is, to the area representating structures derived from the embryonic branchial arches, namely, the peri-oral region and laryngo-pharyngeal masticatory apparatus. Branchial arch nerves also innervate the fore- and mid-gut and all the related exocrine and endocrine glands.

The concerted modulation of proliferation and migration contributes to the specification of the cytoarchitecture and dimensions of cortical areas.

Regionalization of cell cycle kinetics of cortical precursors has been described in nonhuman primates and rodents indicating a fate map of areas as distinct proliferative programs in the germinal zones of the neocortex. It remains to be understood how proliferative gradients during corticogenesis are transcribed into a stepwise function to form adult areal borders. Here we have used the monkey areas 17 and 18, which show striking cytoarchitectonic differences, as a model system for studying how developmental events establish areal boundaries in the adult.