Project description:Spinal cord injury (SCI) often leads to persistent functional deficits due to severe neuron and glial loss, and to limited axonal regeneration after injury. Here we show that the transplantation of human dental stem cells into the completely transected adult rat spinal cord resulted in a significant recovery of hindlimb locomotor functions. These stem cells exhibited three major neuro-regenerative activities. First, they inhibited the SCI-induced apoptosis of neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes, improving the preservation of neuronal filaments and myelin sheaths. Second, they promoted the regeneration of transected axons by directly inhibiting multiple axon growth inhibitors, including chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan and myelin-associated glycoprotein, by paracrine mechanisms. Third, they replaced lost cells by differentiating into mature oligodendrocytes under the extreme conditions of SCI. Our data demonstrate that tooth-derived stem cells may provide novel therapeutic benefits for treating SCI through both cell-autonomous and paracrine neuro-regenerative activities. Human dental stem cells were isolated from exfoliated deciduous teeth extracted for clinical purposes were collected at Nagoya University School of Medicine, under approved guidelines set by Nagoya University (H-73, 2003). The ethics committee of Nagoya University approved the experimental protocols (permission number 8-2). Mesenchymal stem cells of human Bone marrow line were obtained from Lonza. Total RNAs were isolated and quantified by spectrophotometer. RNA integrity was checked on 1% agarose gels. RT reactions were carried out with Superscript III reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen) using 1 μg of total RNA in a 50 μl total reaction volume. Microarray experiments were carried out using a CodeLink™ Human Whole Genome Bioarray (Applied Microarrays, Inc. Tempe, AZ) at Filgen, Inc. (Nagoya, Japan). The arrays were scanned using a GenePix4000B Array Scanner (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA), and the data was analyzed by using MicroArray Data Analysis Tool Ver3.2 (Filgen, Inc.).
Project description:A prototype oligonucleotide microarray was designed to detect and identify viable bacterial species with the potential to grow of common beer spoilage microorganisms from the genera Lactobacillus, Megasphaera, Pediococcus and Pectinatus. Probes targeted the intergenic spacer regions (ISR) between 16S and 23S rRNA, which were amplified in a combination of reverse transcriptase (RT) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) prior to hybridization. This method allows the detection and discrimination of single bacterial species in a complex sample. Furthermore, microarrays using oligonucleotide probes targeting the ISR allow the distinction between viable bacteria with the potential to grow and non-growing bacteria. The results demonstrate the feasibility of oligonucleotide microarrays as a contamination control in food industry for the detection and identification of spoilage microorganisms within mixed population. Keywords: microarray, oligonucleotide, species-specific, detection, beer spoilage bacteria