Faecal continence is a complex function involving different organs and systems. Faecal incontinence is a common disorder with different pathogeneses, disabling consequences and high repercussions for quality of life. Current management modalities are not ideal, and the development of new treatments is needed. Since 2008, stem cell therapies have been validated, 36 publications have appeared (29 in preclinical models and seven in clinical settings), and six registered clinical trials are currently ongoing. Some publications have combined stem cells with bioengineering technologies. The aim of this review is to identify and summarise the existing published knowledge of stem cell utilization as a treatment for faecal incontinence. A narrative or descriptive review is presented. Preclinical studies have demonstrated that cellular therapy, mainly in the form of local injections of muscle-derived (muscle derived stem cells or myoblasts derived from them) or mesenchymal (bone-marrow- or adipose-derived) stem cells, is safe. Cellular therapy has also been shown to stimulate the repair of both acute and subacute anal sphincter injuries, and some encouraging functional results have been obtained. Stem cells combined with normal cells on bioengineered scaffolds have achieved the successful creation and implantation of intrinsically-innervated anal sphincter constructs. The clinical evidence, based on adipose-derived stem cells and myoblasts, is extremely limited yet has yielded some promising results, and appears to be safe. Further investigation in both animal models and clinical settings is necessary to drawing conclusions. Nevertheless, if the preliminary results are confirmed, stem cell therapy for faecal incontinence may well become a clinical reality in the near future.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.4252/wjsc.v10.i7.82 | DOI Listing |
Nat Commun
December 2024
IRCCS Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Bologna, Istituto di Ematologia "Seràgnoli", Bologna, Italy.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive disease with a high relapse rate. In this study, we map the metabolic profile of CD34(CD38) AML cells and the extracellular vesicle signatures in circulation from AML patients at diagnosis. CD34 AML cells display high antioxidant glutathione levels and enhanced mitochondrial functionality, both associated with poor clinical outcomes.
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December 2024
Department of Convergence IT Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Republic of Korea.
Mid-infrared photoacoustic microscopy can capture biochemical information without staining. However, the long mid-infrared optical wavelengths make the spatial resolution of photoacoustic microscopy significantly poorer than that of conventional confocal fluorescence microscopy. Here, we demonstrate an explainable deep learning-based unsupervised inter-domain transformation of low-resolution unlabeled mid-infrared photoacoustic microscopy images into confocal-like virtually fluorescence-stained high-resolution images.
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December 2024
School of Data Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China.
Recently, RNA velocity has driven a paradigmatic change in single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) studies, allowing the reconstruction and prediction of directed trajectories in cell differentiation and state transitions. Most existing methods of dynamic modeling use ordinary differential equations (ODE) for individual genes without applying multivariate approaches. However, this modeling strategy inadequately captures the intrinsically stochastic nature of transcriptional dynamics governed by a cell-specific latent time across multiple genes, potentially leading to erroneous results.
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December 2024
KU Leuven Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Virology, Antiviral Drug & Vaccine Research Group, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Leuven, Belgium.
The 2015-2016 Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak in the Americas revealed the ability of ZIKV from the Asian lineage to cause birth defects, generically called congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). Notwithstanding the long circulation history of Asian ZIKV, no ZIKV-associated CZS cases were reported prior to the outbreaks in French Polynesia (2013) and Brazil (2015). Whether the sudden emergence of CZS resulted from an evolutionary event of Asian ZIKV has remained unclear.
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December 2024
Department of Genetics, Yale University, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, 06510, CT, USA.
The cis-regulatory elements encoded in an mRNA determine its stability and translational output. While there has been a considerable effort to understand the factors driving mRNA stability, the regulatory frameworks governing translational control remain more elusive. We have developed a novel massively parallel reporter assay (MPRA) to measure mRNA translation, named Nascent Peptide Translating Ribosome Affinity Purification (NaP-TRAP).
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