Introduction: Extracellular vesicles from mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC-EVs) are potent stimulators of naïve cartilage and their injection is studied in clinical trials for cartilage lesions, since often cartilage repaired with conventional approaches is incomplete or less performant leading to joint degeneration. The main pitfall of these innovative approaches is the high EVs dispersion into the joint cavity and consequent low concentration at lesion site. Thus, biological scaffolds for concentration of EVs where needed might be a promising option.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSkeletal muscle tissue (SMT) has a highly hierarchical and anisotropic morphology, featuring aligned and parallel structures at multiple levels. Various factors, including trauma and disease conditions, can compromise the functionality of skeletal muscle. The in vitro modeling of SMT represents a useful tool for testing novel drugs and therapies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe total testing process harmonization is central to laboratory medicine, leading to the laboratory test's effectiveness. In this opinion paper the five phases of the TTP are analyzed, describing, and summarizing the critical issues that emerged in each phase of the TTP with the SARS-CoV-2 serological tests that have affected their effectiveness. Testing and screening the population was essential for defining seropositivity and, thus, driving public health policies in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdverse remodeling post-myocardial infarction is hallmarked by the phenotypic change of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) into myofibroblasts (MyoFs) and over-deposition of the fibrotic extracellular matrix (ECM) mainly composed by fibronectin and collagens, with the loss of tissue anisotropy and tissue stiffening. Reversing cardiac fibrosis represents a key challenge in cardiac regenerative medicine. Reliable models of human cardiac fibrotic tissue could be useful for preclinical testing of new advanced therapies, addressing the limited predictivity of traditional 2D cell cultures and animal models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Appl Mater Interfaces
February 2023
Cell contact guidance is widely employed to manipulate cell alignment and differentiation . The use of nano- or micro-patterned substrates allows efficient control of cell organization, thus opening up to biological models that cannot be reproduced spontaneously on standard culture dishes. In this paper, we explore the concept of cell contact guidance by Liquid Crystalline Networks (LCNs) presenting different surface topographies obtained by self-assembly of the monomeric mixture.
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