Integrin α2β1 plays an important role in the interaction between human articular cartilage-derived chondrocytes and atelocollagen gel.

Although atelocollagen gel is used as a scaffold for culturing human articular cartilage-derived chondrocytes, little is known about cell-gel interactions. In this study, we investigated the mechanism via which atelocollagen gel affects human articular cartilage-derived chondrocytes. Two types of three-dimensional cultures of human articular cartilage-derived chondrocytes (i.

Domain structures and dielectric properties resulting from tweed precursors of relaxor ferroelectric solid-solution single-crystal 24Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-46Pb (Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-30PbTio3.

The domain structures of poled and depoled lead-based relaxor ferroelectric solid-solution single-crystal 24Pb(In(1/2)Nb(1/2))O(3)-46Pb (Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-30PbTio(3) are studied by polarized light microscopy, piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and dielectric spectroscopy. The domain structures in the nonergodic relaxor state are found by PFM to consist of tweed structures resulting from random fields from the competition between ferroelectric and antiferroelectric distortion, and planar defects found by SEM are treated as dislocations associated with strain accommodation, resulting in superior piezoelectric properties. This domain structure is found to be connected with hierarchical domain structures.

Changes in angiogenesis-related factors in serum following autologous bone marrow cell implantation for severe limb ischemia.

Objective: Bone marrow mononuclear cell (BM-MNC) implantation (BMI) for critical severe limb ischemia especially for Buerger's disease shows excellent clinical results but the mechanism of this treatment is still unknown. In this study, we investigated the changes in serum levels of angiogenesis-related factors after BMI treatment.

Research Design/methods: Twelve patients whose BMI treatments were clinically very effective was selected out of ninteen cases, nine patients had Buerger's disease, two patients had arteriosclerosis obliterans and one had systemic sclerosis.