Characterizing nuclear and mitochondrial DNA in spent embryo culture media: genetic contamination identified.

Objective: To characterize nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in spent culture media from normally developing blastocysts to determine whether it could be used for noninvasive genetic assessment.

Design: Prospective embryo cohort study.

Setting: Academic center and private in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic.

Repositioning drugs for inflammatory disease - fishing for new anti-inflammatory agents.

Inflammation is an important and appropriate host response to infection or injury. However, dysregulation of this response, with resulting persistent or inappropriate inflammation, underlies a broad range of pathological processes, from inflammatory dermatoses to type 2 diabetes and cancer. As such, identifying new drugs to suppress inflammation is an area of intense interest.

Epidermal cells help coordinate leukocyte migration during inflammation through fatty acid-fuelled matrix metalloproteinase production.

In addition to satisfying the metabolic demands of cells, mitochondrial metabolism helps regulate immune cell function. To date, such cell-intrinsic metabolic-immunologic cross-talk has only been described operating in cells of the immune system. Here we show that epidermal cells utilize fatty acid β-oxidation to fuel their contribution to the immune response during cutaneous inflammation.