Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most prevalent malignant brain tumor, with an average survival time of 14 to 20 months. Its capacity to invade brain parenchyma leads to the failure of conventional treatments and subsequent tumor recurrence. Recent studies have explored new therapeutic strategies using a chemoattracting gradient to attract GBM cells into a soft hydrogel trap where they can be exposed to higher doses of radiation or chemotherapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGrade IV multiforme glioblastoma (GBM) is an aggressive cancer that remains incurable due to the GBM cells invading and proliferating in the surrounding healthy tissues, even after tumor resection. A new therapeutic paradigm to treat GBM is to attract and accumulate GBM cells in a macroporous hydrogel inserted in the surgical cavity after tumor resection, followed by a targeted high dose of radiotherapy. This work presents a molding-based method to prepare macroporous hydrogels composed of sodium alginate and chitosan, homogeneously mixed in solution using sodium bicarbonate, and subsequently crosslinked with genipin and calcium chloride.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe development of biomaterials such as synthetic scaffolds for peripheral nerve regeneration requires a precise knowledge of the mechanical properties of the nerve in physiological-like conditions. Mechanical properties (Young's modulus, maximum stress and strain at break) for peripheral nerves are scarce and large discrepancies are observed in between reports. This is due in part to the absence of a robust testing device for nerves.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraumatic injuries to the peripheral nervous system (PNI) can lead to severe consequences such as paralysis. Unfortunately, current treatments rarely allow for satisfactory functional recovery. The high healthcare costs associated with PNS injuries, worker disability, and low patient satisfaction press for alternative solutions that surpass current standards.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioblastoma (GBM) accounts for half of all central nervous system tumors. Once the tumor is removed, many GBM cells remain present near the surgical cavity and infiltrate the brain up to a distance of 20-30 mm, resulting in recurrence a few months later. GBM remains incurable due to the limited efficiency of current treatments, a result of the blood-brain barrier and sensitivity of healthy brain tissues to chemotherapy and radiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeripheral nerve injuries (PNIs) are detrimental to the quality of life of affected individuals. Patients are often left with life-long ailments that affect them physically and psychologically. Autologous nerve transplant is still the gold standard treatment for PNIs despite limited donor site and partial recovery of nerve functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDocosahexaenoic acid (DHA) consumption reduces spatial memory impairment in mice carrying the human apolipoprotein E ε4 () allele. The current study evaluated whether astrocyte and microglia morphology contribute to the mechanism of this result. and mice were fed either a DHA-enriched diet or a control diet from 4 to 12 months of age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent studies have identified FoxL1-telocytes (TC) as key players in gut epithelial-mesenchymal interactions which can determine the colonic microenvironment. Bone morphogenetic protein signaling disruption in TC alters the physical and cellular microenvironment and leads to colon pathophysiology. This suggests a role for TC in stromagenesis, but it is hard to identify the specific contribution of TC when analyzing whole tissue profiling studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioblastoma multiforme is a type of brain cancer associated with a very low survival rate since a large number of cancer cells remain infiltrated in the brain despite the treatments currently available. This work presents a macroporous hydrogel trap, destined to be implanted in the surgical cavity following tumor resection and designed to attract and retain cancer cells, in order to eliminate them afterward with a lethal dose of stereotactic radiotherapy. The biocompatible hydrogel formulation comprises sodium alginate (SA) and chitosan (CHI) bearing complementary electrostatic charges and stabilizing the gels in saline and cell culture media, as compared to pristine SA gels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a grade IV glioma considered the most fatal cancer of the central nervous system (CNS), with less than a 5% survival rate after five years. The tumor heterogeneity, the high infiltrative behavior of its cells, and the blood-brain barrier (BBB) that limits the access of therapeutic drugs to the brain are the main reasons hampering the current standard treatment efficiency. Following the tumor resection, the infiltrative remaining GBM cells, which are resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, can further invade the surrounding brain parenchyma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo overcome the radioresistance of glioblastoma (GBM) cells infiltrated in the brain, we propose to attract these cancer cells into a trap to which a lethal radiation dose can be delivered safely. Herein, we have prepared and characterized a sodium alginate-based macroporous hydrogel as a potential cancer cell trap. Microcomputed X-ray tomography shows that the hydrogel matrices comprise interconnected pores with an average diameter of 300 μm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceutics
November 2020
The authors wish to make the following correction to this paper [...
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHematoma and skeletal muscles play a crucial role in bone fracture healing. The muscle resident mesenchymal stromal cells (mrSCs) can promote bone formation by differentiating into osteoblasts upon treatment by bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP), such as BMP9. However, the influence of hematoma fracture extracts (Hema) on human mrSC (hmrSC) response to BMP9 is still unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChitosan (Chit) currently used to prepare nanoparticles (NPs) for brain application can be complexed with negatively charged polymers such as alginate (Alg) to better entrap positively charged molecules such as CXCL12. A sustained CXCL12 gradient created by a delivery system can be used, as a therapeutic approach, to control the migration of cancerous cells infiltrated in peri-tumoral tissues similar to those of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). For this purpose, we prepared Alg/Chit NPs entrapping CXCL12 and characterized them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Trauma-induced heterotopic ossification (HO) is a complication that develops under three conditions: the presence of an osteogenic progenitor cell, an inducing factor, and a permissive environment. We previously showed that a mouse multipotent Sca1 CD31 Lin muscle resident stromal cell (mrSC) population is involved in the development of HO in the presence of inducing factors, members of the bone morphogenetic protein family. Interestingly, BMP9 unlike BMP2 causes HO only if the muscle is damaged by injection of cardiotoxin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current aging of the world population will increase the number of people suffering from brain degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). There are evidence showing that the use of growth factors such as BMP-9 could restored cognitive function as it acts on many AD hallmarks at the same time. However, BMP-9 is a big protein expensive to produce that can hardly access the central nervous system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe incidence of brain degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) will increase as the world population is ageing. While current AD treatments have only a transient effect, there are many evidences indicating that some growth factors, such as BMP-9, may be used to treat AD. However, growth factors cannot readily access the brain because of their size and the presence of the blood brain barrier.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe incidence of brain degenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease (AD) will increase as the world population ages. While there is presently no known cure for AD and current treatments having only a transient effect, an increasing number of publications indicate that growth factors (GF) may be used to treat AD. GFs like the bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), especially BMP-9, affect many aspects of AD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTissue Eng Part A
September 2016
The bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), which are involved in bone formation and repair, play an important role in tissue engineering. For example, BMP-9 and BMP-2, which are members of different BMP subfamilies, are osteoinductive factors. However, several studies have recently shown that BMP-9 is more osteogenic than BMP-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs the populations of the Western world become older, they will suffer more and more from bone defects related to osteoporosis (non-union fractures, vertebral damages), cancers (malignant osteolysis) and infections (osteomyelitis). Autografts are usually used to fill these defects, but they have several drawbacks such as morbidity at the donor site and the amount and quality of bone that can be harvested. Recent scientific milestones made in biomaterials development were shown to be promising to overcome these limitations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Biomimetic materials were developed to regulate stem cell behaviour. We have analyzed the influence of polycaprolactone (PCL) films, functionalized with adhesive peptides derived from fibronectin (pFibro) or bone sialoprotein (pBSP), on the response of murine multipotent C3H10T1/2 cells to bone morphogenetic protein-9 (BMP-9) and its derived peptides (pBMP-9 and SpBMP-9). PCL-pFibro promoted better cell cytoskeleton organization and faster focal adhesion kinase activation than did PCL-pBSP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is increasing steadily as the world population ages, thus creating a huge socio-economic burden. Current treatments have only transient effects and concentrate on a single aspect of AD. There is much evidence suggesting that growth factors (GFs) have a great therapeutic potential and can play on all AD hallmarks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe number of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD) will increase as the world population ages, creating a huge socio-economic burden. The three pathophysiological hallmarks of AD are the cholinergic system dysfunction, the β-amyloid peptide deposition and the Tau protein hyperphosphorylation. Current treatments have only transient effects and each tends to concentrate on a single pathophysiological aspect of AD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFType I collagen is one of the most widely used materials for drug delivery in tissue repair. It is the reference carrier for delivering growth factors like bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs such as BMP-2 and BMP-7) for bone repair. Since BMPs are expensive to produce, we have developed a peptide derived from BMP-9 (pBMP-9) that is 300 times less expensive than the entire protein while still promoting osteogenic differentiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are potent osteogenic molecules that are used for bone repair in delivery systems and in regenerative medicine. We studied the responses of murine MC3T3-E1 preosteoblasts to doses of recombinant human (rh)BMP-9 with and without fetal bovine serum (FBS). rhBMP-2 was used as a control since it is currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for bone application.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF