The Future of Regenerative Medicine: Cell Therapy Using Pluripotent Stem Cells and Acellular Therapies Based on Extracellular Vesicles.

The rapid progress in the field of stem cell research has laid strong foundations for their use in regenerative medicine applications of injured or diseased tissues. Growing evidences indicate that some observed therapeutic outcomes of stem cell-based therapy are due to paracrine effects rather than long-term engraftment and survival of transplanted cells. Given their ability to cross biological barriers and mediate intercellular information transfer of bioactive molecules, extracellular vesicles are being explored as potential cell-free therapeutic agents.

Distributed automated manufacturing of pluripotent stem cell products.

Establishing how to effectively manufacture cell therapies is an industry-level problem. Decentralised manufacturing is of increasing importance, and its challenges are recognised by healthcare regulators with deviations and comparability issues receiving specific attention from them. This paper is the first to report the deviations and other risks encountered when implementing the expansion of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in an automated three international site-decentralised manufacturing setting.

Comparability of automated human induced pluripotent stem cell culture: a pilot study.

Consistent and robust manufacturing is essential for the translation of cell therapies, and the utilisation automation throughout the manufacturing process may allow for improvements in quality control, scalability, reproducibility and economics of the process. The aim of this study was to measure and establish the comparability between alternative process steps for the culture of hiPSCs. Consequently, the effects of manual centrifugation and automated non-centrifugation process steps, performed using TAP Biosystems' CompacT SelecT automated cell culture platform, upon the culture of a human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) line (VAX001024c07) were compared.

A novel antiangiogenic and vascular normalization therapy targeted against human CD160 receptor.

Angiogenesis plays an essential role in several diseases of the eye and in the growth of solid tumors, but existing antiangiogenic therapies have limited benefits in several cases. We report the antiangiogenic effects of a monoclonal antibody, CL1-R2, in several animal models of neovascularization. CL1-R2 recognizes human CD160, a membrane receptor which is conserved in various mammal species.

Distinct role of nox1, nox2, and p47phox in unstimulated versus angiotensin II-induced NADPH oxidase activity in human venous smooth muscle cells.

Human saphenous veins (SV) are used for coronary bypass surgery despite the higher rate of graft failure observed as compared to arteries. A higher production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in SV than in internal mammary artery (IMA) has been incriminated as possibly implicated in graft failure. NADPH oxidase, involved in vascular ROS production, was therefore characterized in human smooth muscle cells from SV.

Cell death in protists without mitochondria.

Some protozoans, such as Trichomonad species, do not possess mitochondria. Most of the time, they harbor another type of membrane-bounded organelle, called hydrogenosome from its capacity to produce H(2). This is the case for the human parasite Trichomonas vaginalis.

A form of cell death with some features resembling apoptosis in the amitochondrial unicellular organism Trichomonas vaginalis.

One of hallmarks of apoptosis is the degradation and concomitant compaction of chromatin. It is assumed that caspases and caspase-independent pathways are rate limiting for the development of nuclear apoptosis. The caspase-independent pathway involves apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) and leads to DNA fragmentation and peripheral chromatin condensation.