Sensory neurons increase keratinocyte proliferation through CGRP release in a tissue engineered in vitro model of innervation in psoriasis.

Skin denervation has been shown to cause remission of psoriatic lesions in patients, which can reappear if reinnervation occurs. This effect can be induced by the activation of dendritic cells through sensory innervation. However, a direct effect of nerves on the proliferation of keratinocytes involved in the formation of psoriatic plaques has not been investigated.

Invasive group A streptococcal (iGAS) surveillance in Island Health, British Columbia, 2022.

Background: Invasive group A streptococcal disease (iGAS) is caused by group A bacteria. In 2022, multiple disease alerts for iGAS in the Island Health region, in the context of increased infections in the paediatric population in Europe and the United States, prompted further investigation into local trends. This surveillance study summarizes epidemiological trends of iGAS in the region covered by Island Health, a regional health authority in British Columbia, in 2022.

In Vitro 3D Modeling of Neurodegenerative Diseases.

The study of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is very complex due to the difficulty in investigating the cellular dynamics within nervous tissue. Despite numerous advances in the in vivo study of these diseases, the use of in vitro analyses is proving to be a valuable tool to better understand the mechanisms implicated in these diseases. Although neural cells remain difficult to obtain from patient tissues, access to induced multipotent stem cell production now makes it possible to generate virtually all neural cells involved in these diseases (from neurons to glial cells).

Repair of peripheral nerve injuries using a prevascularized cell-based tissue-engineered nerve conduit.

One of the major challenges in the development of a larger and longer nerve conduit for peripheral nerve repair is the limitation in oxygen and nutrient diffusion within the tissue after transplantation preventing Schwann cell and axonal migration. This restriction is due to the slow neovascularization process of the graft starting from both nerve endings. To overcome this limitation, we propose the design of a living tissue-engineered nerve conduit made of an internal tube with a three-dimensional structure supporting axonal migration, which is inserted inside a hollow external tube that plays the role of an epineurium and is strong enough to be stitched to the severed nerve stumps.

In Vitro Prevascularization of Self-Assembled Human Bone-Like Tissues and Preclinical Assessment Using a Rat Calvarial Bone Defect Model.

In vitro prevascularization has the potential to address the challenge of maintaining cell viability at the core of engineered constructs, such as bone substitutes, and to improve the survival of tissue grafts by allowing quicker anastomosis to the host microvasculature. The self-assembly approach of tissue engineering allows the production of biomimetic bone-like tissue constructs including extracellular matrix and living human adipose-derived stromal/stem cells (hASCs) induced towards osteogenic differentiation. We hypothesized that the addition of endothelial cells could improve osteogenesis and biomineralization during the production of self-assembled human bone-like tissues using hASCs.