Background: Inflammaging represents an accepted concept where the immune system shifts to a low-grade chronic pro-inflammatory state without overt infection upon aging. In the CNS, inflammaging is mainly driven by glia cells and associated with neurodegenerative processes. White matter degeneration (WMD), a well-known process in the aging brain, manifests in myelin loss finally resulting in motor, sensory and cognitive impairments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTen percent of patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA) require revision surgery. One of the reasons for THA are wear particles released from the implants that can activate the immune defense and cause osteolysis and failure of the joint implant. The discrepancies between reports on toxicity and immunogenicity of the implant materials led us to this study in which we compared toxicity and immunogenicity of well-defined nanoparticles from AlO, zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA), and cobalt chrome (CoCr), a human THP-1 macrophage cell line, human PBMCs, and therefrom-derived primary macrophages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDue to the highly invasive nature of Glioblastoma (GB), complete surgical resection is not feasible, while motile tumour cells are often associated with several specific brain structures that enhance treatment-resistance. Here, we investigate the therapeutic potential of Disulfiram and Carbenoxolone, that inhibit two distinct interactions between GB and the brain tissue microenvironment: stress-induced cell-matrix adhesion and gap junction mediated cell-cell communication, respectively. Increase in cell numbers of tumour-initiating cells, which are cultured in suspension as cell clusters, and adherent differentiated cells can be blocked to a similar extent by Carbenoxolone, as both cell populations form gap junctions, but the adherent differentiated cells are much more sensitive to Disulfiram treatment, which - via modulation of NF-κB signalling - interferes with cell-substrate adhesion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death in young adults. After the initial injury, a poorly understood secondary phase, including a strong inflammatory response determines the final outcome of TBI. The inhibitor of NF-κB kinase (IKK)/NF-κB signaling system is the key regulator of inflammation and also critically involved in regulation of neuronal survival and synaptic plasticity.
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