Publications by authors named "Masashi Fujiwara"

Nanofibrillated bacterial cellulose (NFBC) is a bio-compatible long-fiber nanocellulose produced by cellulose-synthesizing bacteria. It forms an entangled network structure in the suspension state, thereby imparting greater viscosity than conventional media additives. In this study, we examined its application as a shear protectant in the suspension culture of mammalian cells to mitigate hydrodynamic stress imposed on the cells.

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Low-concentration alkali treatments at low temperatures facilitate the crystal transition of cellulose I to II. However, the transition mechanism remains unclear. Hence, in this study, we traced the transition using in situ solid-state C CP/MAS NMR, WAXS, and Na NMR relaxation measurements.

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Whether whole body heat loss and thermoregulatory function (local sweat rate and skin blood flow) are different between summer and autumn and between autumn and winter seasons during exercise with different air flow in humid heat remain unknown. We therefore tested the hypotheses that whole body sweat rate (WBSR), evaporated sweat rate, and thermoregulatory function during cycling exercise in autumn would be higher than in winter but would be lower than in summer under hot-humid environment (32 C, 75% RH). We also tested the hypothesis that the increase of air velocity would enhance evaporated sweat rate and sweating efficiency across winter, summer, and autumn seasons.

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With the aim of regulating clock gene expression to control cell activities in cell processing engineering, the effect of the combination of residual glucose concentration and subsequent increment by temporal glucose feeding on the oscillation of the expression of clock gene was investigated employing rat Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-like cells having promoter gene with a destabilized luciferase gene (). Two experiments with several initial glucose concentrations and different times of cultures (2 and 5 days) before temporal glucose feeding (0.9 g/L) were employed to realize various concentrations of residual glucose in the medium before the feeding.

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Seasonal acclimatization from winter to summer is known to enhance thermoeffector responses in hot-dry environments during exercise whereas its impact on sweat evaporation and core temperature (T) responses in hot-humid environments remains unknown. We, therefore, sought to determine whether seasonal acclimatization is able to modulate whole body sweat rate (WBSR), evaporated sweat rate, sweating efficiency, and thermoregulatory function during cycling exercise in a hot-humid environment (32°C, 75% RH). We also determined whether the increase in air velocity could enhance evaporated sweat rate and sweating efficiency before and after seasonal acclimatization.

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While continuous (perfusion) culture of mammalian cells might reduce the reactor size owing to the high cell density, there is the problem of higher medium cost; however, this problem is expected to be solved by the reuse of growth-promoting components in the culture supernatant. The polymer fraction (PF, 10 kDa-220 nm) collected from the supernatant of serum-free repeated-batch culture of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells in not only adhesion but also suspension promoted the cell growth in respective serum-free cultures. PF contained CD81-positive exosomes and proteins, both of which were necessary for its growth-promoting activity.

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Although nonwoven fabric (NWF) has been reported to be a candidate scaffold for the large-scale expansion of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the quality of cells grown in NWF has not been well clarified. In this report, MSCs grown in an NWF disc for 3 weeks showed higher osteogenic differentiation potential and percentage of CD90 (+) cells than MSCs grown on the bottom surface of dish. The amount of the extracellular matrix (ECM) per unit surface area of fibers was larger than that on the bottom surface of the dish in the first 2 weeks of culture.

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We examined whether partial clothing removal is an effective thermoregulatory behaviour to attenuate both thermoregulatory and perceptual strain in a moderate environment (23 °C, 65% RH) during and after exercise. Ten healthy males (age: 21.9 (0.

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To obtain a large number of human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSCs) for allograft, nonwoven fabrics (NWF) were used as a cell culture scaffold. NWF are three-dimensional fiber aggregates formed by heat bonding and have a high surface area for cell adhesion and elongation. Inoculation hMSC was done to a center of NWF disc (diameter, 15.

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An ex vivo cartilage defect model for the evaluation of cartilage regeneration using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was developed. Porcine chondrocytes and human MSCs were transplanted into cartilage defects created on the porcine osteochondral and chondral discs and cultivated for 3 weeks. Although the regeneration of cartilage-like tissues was observed after the transplantation of chondrocytes to defects on both of the osteochondral and chondral discs, the transplanted MSCs formed cartilage-like tissues only in the defect on the chondral disc, in which an in vivo cartilage-like structure was partly observed, and a degraded tissue was observed in the defect on the osteochondral disc.

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High-expression plasmid vectors for human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were constructed by combination of cytomegalovirus immediate-early enhancer with cellular promoters. MSCs transfected with the vector showed higher transgene production of a cytokine, which increased the differentiation level to chondrocytes.

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The effects of heat treatment and concentration of fish serum (FS) on cell growth in a suspension culture of recombinant Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) 1-15(500) (ATCC CRL-9606) cells were investigated. An increase in FS concentration from 1% to 4% markedly increased cell density. On the other hand, heat treatment of FS showed nearly no effect on cell density.

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The effects of heat treatment and concentration of fish serum (FS) on cell growth and human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF) production in an adhesion culture of recombinant Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, DR1000L4N, were investigated. The addition of heat treated FS instead of non-heat-treated FS improved cell growth in terms of cell density, which reached 60% that in 10% fetal calf serum (FCS)-containing medium (FCS medium). A decrease in FS concentration from 10 to 1.

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A morphological parameter of polygonal index was defined as the ratio of cell adhesion area versus the square of the major cell axis, and cells that had an adhesion area larger than 4000 mum(2) and a polygonal index larger than 0.3 were considered large polygonal cells. Cell morphology tended to change from fibroblast-like to polygonal and the percentage of the large polygonal cells increased almost in proportion to aggrecan mRNA expression level during the differentiation culture of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to chondrocytes.

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The effect of static pressure on the intracellular pH of the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line DR1000L4N was investigated. In cultivation of CHO cells at 0.9 MPa, two distinct populations were observed in the histogram of a flow cytometer, while single population was observed in cultivation at 0.

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Noninvasive measurement of 3-D morphology of adhered animal cells employing a phase-shifting laser microscope (PLM) is investigated, in which the phase shift for each pixel in the view field caused by cell height and the difference in refractive indices between the cells and the medium is determined. By employing saline with different refractive indices instead of a culture medium, the refractive index of the cells, which is necessary for the determination of cell height, is determined under PLM. The observed height of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells cultivated under higher osmolarity is lower than that of the cells cultivated under physiological osmolarity, which is in agreement with previous data observed under an atomic force microscope (AFM).

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The effects of the density of human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on their differentiation to chondrocytes in a differentiation medium supplemented with dexamethasone, TGFbeta3, and IGF-1 were investigated for the regenerative therapy of cartilage. The increase in the initial density of MSCs from 0.05 x 10(4) to 0.

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The precise assignments of cross polarization/magic angle spinning (CP/MAS) (13)C NMR spectra of cellulose I(alpha) and I(beta) were performed by using (13)C labeled cellulose biosynthesized by Acetobacter xylinum (A. xylinum) ATCC10245 strain from culture medium containing D-[1,3-(13)C]glycerol or D-[2-(13)C]glucose as a carbon source. On the CP/MAS (13)C NMR spectrum of cellulose from D-[1,3-(13)C]glycerol, the introduced (13)C labeling were observed at C1, C3, C4, and C6 of the biosynthesized cellulose.

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