ABSTRACT: Enhancing the Therapeutic Effectiveness of Immune Checkpoint Blockade with Novel Injectable Hydrogel Microspheres Co-loaded with Manganese and Magnesium Ions
Project description:he dynamic balance of hypoxia and oxidative stress constitutes the oxygen-related microenvironment in injured tissues. Oxygen homeostasis is highly variable; therefore, it is not a therapeutic target for injured tissue repair. We found an enrichment and extensive apoptosis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) infused intravenously in the wound microenvironment with co-existing hypoxia and oxidative stress. Apoptotic bodies (ABs), generated from in situ apoptosis, significantly promotes angiogenesis. We improved the derivation pathway of ABs by simulating oxygen homeostasis in injured tissues, with cobalt chloride-induced hypoxia or hydrogen peroxide-induced oxidative stress in MSCs. Oxygen-related environmental stressed ABs, derived from environments of hypoxic and oxidative stress, were identified and loaded onto hydrogel microspheres for accurate regulation of endothelial cells (ECs) vascularization. These ABs directly targeted ECs; oxidative stress ABs (Oxi-ABs) have a 2.5- and 4-fold higher tube-forming ability than hypoxic and normoxic ABs, respectively. miRNA microarray analysis revealed that different oxygen-stressed ABs deliver similar miRNAs, which leads to the broad upregulation of EC phosphokinase activity. Finally, local delivery of Oxi-ABs-loaded hydrogel microspheres promotes wound healing. Oxi-ABs-loaded hydrogel microspheres achieved controlled AB release, targeting EC by reducing the consumption of early inflammatory cells and adapting to the proliferative phase of wound healing. Thus, the biogenerated apoptotic bodies responding to oxygen-related environmental stress can target ECs to promote vascularization.
Project description:Survival of plants depends on their ability to adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions. Chloroplasts sense different stimuli and respond to ion fluxes in the cytosol triggering systemic responses under stress conditions. Indeed, changes in calcium and magnesium ion concentration in the chloroplast stroma impact the immune response against pathogens and adapt the photosynthetic machinery under fluctuating light conditions. Here we investigated the link between di-valent cations, calcium, magnesium and manganese and the protein kinase activity in Arabidopsis chloroplasts. Our results show that overall, manganese ions are the strongest activator of kinase activity in chloroplasts followed by magnesium ions, whereas calcium ions have seemingly no effect. Additionally, when comparing the phosphorylation pattern from Arabidopsis wild type and a cmt1 mutant, which is defective in manganese import into chloroplasts, the phosphorylation of specific protein bands is strongly reduced in the mutant chloroplasts supporting the notion that chloroplasts contain manganese-dependent protein kinases. These findings provide insights for the future characterization of chloroplast protein kinases activity regarding in-vitro assays and potential target proteins.
Project description:A honeycomb-like scaffold is constructed bionicly, with DCPD-coated magnesium alloy as the matrix and zinc ion-containing AlgMa hydrogel wrapped on the outside to promote the integrated repair of bone and cartilage damage. The scaffold promotes bidirectional differentiation of BMSCs, is antibacterial, provides mechanical support, and slowly degrades by slowly releasing magnesium ions and zinc ions.
Project description:Delivery of therapeutic stem cells to treat bone tissue damage is a promising strategy that faces many hurdles to clinical translation. Among them is the design of a delivery vehicle which promotes desired cell behavior for new bone formation. In this work, we describe the use of an injectable microporous hydrogel, made of crosslinked gelatin microgels, for the encapsulation and delivery of human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and compared it to a traditional nonporous injectable hydrogel. MSCs encapsulated in the microporous hydrogel showed rapid cell spreading with direct cell-cell connections whereas the MSCs in the nonporous hydrogel were entrapped by the surrounding polymer mesh and isolated from each other. Microporous hydrogel induced more robust osteogenic differentiation of MSCs and calcium mineral deposition than the nonporous hydrogel confirmed by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) assay and calcium assay. RNA-seq confirmed the upregulation of the genes and pathways that are associated with cell spreading and cell-cell connections, as well as the osteogenesis in the microporous hydrogel. These results demonstrate that the microgel-based injectable hydrogels can be useful tools for therapeutic cell delivery for bone tissue repair.
Project description:A new approach to sample preparation and enzymatic digestion in bottom-up proteomics has been developed using alginate-based hydrogel entrapment of enzymes. This hydrogel facilitates rapid and room-temperature digestions with multienzyme capabilities. Three methodologies were tested: within microcentrifuge tubes, in situ pipette tips, and automated robotic liquid handling. Factorial experimental design identified a 1 h, room temperature, pepsin–trypsin dual-enzyme digestion as optimal for sequence coverage and protein group identification, comparable to a gold-standard overnight proteomic protocol. This method promises significant advancements in proteomic analysis by enhancing reusability, speed, throughput, convenience, and cost-effectiveness, without hindering digestion efficiency.
Project description:Aseptic loosening represents a significant factor contributing to joint replacement failure, primarily associated with diminished bone formation and heightened osteoclast-induced osteolysis. Here, a natural polymer-based injectable hydrogel that encapsulates irisin protein (referred to as I-OG hydrogel) is reported. The hierarchical cross-linked structure of the I-OG hydrogel confers favorable mechanical properties, desirable self-healing ability, and acceptable injectability and, more importantly, sustains continuous release of the protein at the interface between the bone and implant prosthesis. The I-OG hydrogel effectively fills the gap between the titanium pin and bone tissue, successfully inhibiting aseptic loosening induced by titanium particles, which outcome confirms the occurrence of irisin protein's slow-release process and its inhibitory effect on osteolysis. Mechanistically, our in vitro experiments demonstrated that irisin released from the I-OG hydrogel upregulates the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) through integrin αV, while concurrently downregulating the NF-κB (P65) signaling pathway in osteoblasts. These molecular events ultimately promote osteogenic differentiation and inhibit osteoclast activation. Collectively, our findings establish that the I-OG hydrogel effectively counteracts aseptic loosening by resisting osteolysis caused by titanium particles and enhancing periprosthetic bone formation, and offers promising prospects for the treatment of aseptic loosening in prosthetic implants.
Project description:Transcriptome analysis shows that the adaptation of S. cerevisiae yeast cells to the growth at a toxic concentration of manganese ions involves multiple mechanisms, including the activation of transport systems responsible for manganese compartmentalization, the systems of phosphorus transport and polyphosphates accumulation, as well as other transport proteins.
Project description:This study develop a versatile techonology to largely generate biomimetic epiblast-like tissues based on human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and well-defined biomatrix. Single hiPSCs are wrapped in laminin-alginate (L-A) hydrogel with optimized concentration and stably fabricated a large number of uniform hiPSCs-contained microspheres via electro-assisted bioprinting technology. It was observed that hiPSCs self-organized into disc-like cell clusters in L-A microspheres. Transition of microenvironment to L-A microspheres triggers the fate specification of disc-shaped tissues towards gastrulation with the identity resemble posterior epiblast population of human embryos around gastrulating stage, which is supported by transcriptome analysis.
Project description:The plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens attaches to and forms biofilms on both biotic and abiotic surfaces. The transition between free-living, planktonic A. tumefaciens and multicellular biofilms is regulated by several well-defined environmental and nutritional inputs, including pH, oxygen tension, and phosphate concentration. In many bacterial species limiting iron levels inhibit attachment and biofilm formation. In several systems intracellular levels of the redox-active manganous (Mn2+) and ferrous (Fe2+) ions are interrelated and have tight corresponding regulation with respect to one another. We show that limiting manganese concentrations elicit similar growth and biofilm phenotypes to those seen under iron-limiting conditions. Microarray analysis comparing gene expression in manganese-replete versus manganese-limiting conditions identified a small number of differentially regulated transcripts. These results indicate that the redox-active manganous and ferrous ions are required for wild-type levels of growth and biofilm formation, and that the manganese-dependent response is primarily post-transcriptional and complementary to, but not redundant with, the iron-dependent response. Four biological replicates, independent RNA preparations, two dye swaps.