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Bridging the floods - The role of social learning for resilience building in urban water services

The development of cities is increasingly threatened by a worldwide water crisis. Urban water services (including drinking water, sanitation and drainage) are facing complex and multiple pressures, which are becoming increasingly frequent and severe. These pressures include floods, and the depletion, pollution and degradation of water resources and their associated ecosystems. These diverse pressu

Heterozygous Vangl2Looptail mice reveal novel roles for the planar cell polarity pathway in adult lung homeostasis and repair

Lung diseases impose a huge economic and health burden worldwide. A key aspect of several adult lung diseases, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), including emphysema, is aberrant tissue repair, which leads to an accumulation of damage and impaired respiratory function. Currently, there are few effective treatments available for these disea

Noncanonical WNT-5A signaling impairs endogenous lung repair in COPD

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of death worldwide. One main pathological feature of COPD is the loss of functional alveolar tissue without adequate repair (emphysema), yet the underlying mechanisms are poorly defined. Reduced WNT-β-catenin signaling is linked to impaired lung repair in COPD; however, the factors responsible for attenuating this pathway remain to be

An ex vivo model to induce early fibrosis-like changes in human precision-cut lung slices

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a devastating chronic interstitial lung disease (ILD) characterized by lung tissue scarring and high morbidity. Lung epithelial injury, myofibroblast activation, and deranged repair are believed to be key processes involved in disease onset and progression, but the exact molecular mechanisms behind IPF remain unclear. Several drugs have been shown to slow dis

Reduced frizzled receptor 4 expression prevents WNT/b-catenin-driven alveolar lung repair in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Rationale: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in particular emphysema, is characterized by loss of parenchymal alveolar tissue and impaired tissue repair. Wingless and INT-1 (WNT)/b-catenin signaling is reduced in COPD; however, the mechanisms thereof, specifically the role of the frizzled (FZD) family of WNT receptors, remain unexplored. Objectives: To identify and functionally charact

Impairment of immunoproteasome function by cigarette smoke and in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Rationale: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and in particular smokers aremore susceptible to respiratory infections contributing to acute exacerbations of disease. The immunoproteasome is a specialized type of proteasome destined to improve major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I-mediated antigen presentation for the resolution of intracellular infections. Objectiv

CD11b+ and sca-1+ cells exert the main beneficial effects of systemically administered bone marrow-derivedmononuclear cells in a murinemodel of mixed Th2/Th17 allergic airway inflammation

Systemic administration of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BMDMCs) or bone marrowderivedmesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) reduces inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) in amurinemodel of Th2-mediated eosinophilic allergic airway inflammation. However, since BMDMCs are a heterogeneous population that includesMSCs, it is unclearwhether theMSCs alone are responsible for the BMDMC ef

Decreased laminin expression by human lung epithelial cells and fibroblasts cultured in acellular lung scaffolds from aged mice

The lung changes functionally and structurally with aging. However, age-related effects on the extracellular matrix (ECM) and corresponding effects on lung cell behavior are not well understood. We hypothesized that ECM from aged animals would induce aging-related phenotypic changes in healthy inoculated cells. Decellularized whole organ scaffolds provide a powerful model for examining how ECM cue

Comparative Decellularization and Recellularization of Wild-Type and Alpha 1,3 Galactosyltransferase Knockout Pig Lungs : A Model for Ex Vivo Xenogeneic Lung Bioengineering and Transplantation

Background: A novel potential approach for lung transplantation could be to utilize xenogeneic decellularized pig lung scaffolds that are recellularized with human lung cells. However, pig tissues express several immunogenic proteins, notably galactosylated cell surface glycoproteins resulting from alpha 1,3 galactosyltransferase (α-gal) activity, that could conceivably prevent effective use. Use

A Computational Model of Cellular Engraftment on Lung Scaffolds

The possibility that stem cells might be used to regenerate tissue is now being investigated for a variety of organs, but these investigations are still essentially exploratory and have few predictive tools available to guide experimentation. We propose, in this study, that the field of lung tissue regeneration might be better served by predictive tools that treat stem cells as agents that obey ce

Heat transfer in laminar flows of extended modified power law fluids in rectangular ducts

This paper reports the results of a numerical study of the Nusselt number for the H1 and T boundary conditions in laminar, fully-developed flows of pseudoplastic and dilatant fluids in rectangular ducts. Equations for the apparent viscosity that span the entire shear rate range were utilized and the Nusselt numbers were calculated as a function of a shear rate parameter that determines the flow re

A microwave-assisted solution combustion synthesis to produce europium-doped calcium phosphate nanowhiskers for bioimaging applications

Biocompatible nanoparticles possessing fluorescent properties offer attractive possibilities for multifunctional bioimaging and/or drug and gene delivery applications. Many of the limitations with current imaging systems center on the properties of the optical probes in relation to equipment technical capabilities. Here we introduce a novel high aspect ratio and highly crystalline europium-doped c

WISP1 mediates IL-6-dependent proliferation in primary human lung fibroblasts

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and fatal interstitial lung disease. IPF is characterized by epithelial cell injury and reprogramming, increases in (myo)fibroblasts, and altered deposition of extracellular matrix. The Wnt1-inducible signaling protein 1 (WISP1) is involved in impaired epithelial-mesenchymal crosstalk in pulmonary fibrosis. Here, we aimed to further investigate

Residual Detergent Detection Method for Nondestructive Cytocompatibility Evaluation of Decellularized Whole Lung Scaffolds

The development of reliable tissue engineering methods using decellularized cadaveric or donor lungs could potentially provide a new source of lung tissue. The vast majority of current lung decellularization protocols are detergent based and incompletely removed residual detergents may have a deleterious impact on subsequent scaffold recellularization. Detergent removal and quality control measure

Freshly thawed and continuously cultured human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells comparably ameliorate allergic airways inflammation in immunocompetent mice

Recent data suggest that freshly thawed previously frozen mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) may not have the same effectiveness or breadth of anti-inflammatory activities as do continuously cultured MSCs. This has significant implications for clinical use, in which many infusion schemes use frozen cells thawed at the bedside for administration. The available data, however, predominantly evaluate in

Preclinical validation and imaging of Wnt-induced repair in human 3D lung tissue cultures

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by a progressive loss of lung tissue. Inducing repair processes within the adult diseased lung is of major interest and Wnt/β- catenin signalling represents a promising target for lung repair. However, the translation of novel therapeutic targets from model systems into clinical use remains a major challenge. We generated murine and pat

An official American Thoracic Society workshop report : Stem cells and cell therapies in lung biology and diseases

The University of Vermont College of Medicine and the Vermont Lung Center, in collaboration with the NHLBI, Alpha-1 Foundation, American Thoracic Society, European Respiratory Society, International Society for Cell Therapy, and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, convened a workshop, "Stem Cells and Cell Therapies in Lung Biology and Lung Diseases, " held July 29 to August 1, 2013 at the Universit

Systemic administration of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cell extracellular vesicles ameliorates Aspergillus hyphal extract-induced allergic airway inflammation in immunocompetent mice

An increasing number of studies demonstrate that administration of either conditioned media (CM) or extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) derived from bone marrow and other sources are as effective as the MSCs themselves in mitigating inflammation and injury. The goal of the current study was to determine whether xenogeneic administration of CM or EVs from human

Three-dimensional scaffolds of acellular human and porcine lungs for high throughput studies of lung disease and regeneration

Acellular scaffolds from complex whole organs such as lung are being increasingly studied for ex vivo organ generation and for in vitro studies of cell-extracellular matrix interactions. We have established effective methods for efficient de and recellularization of large animal and human lungs including techniques which allow multiple small segments (~1-3 cm3) to be excised that retain 3-dimensio