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- Junker, Johan, 1980-
(författare)
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Human Dermal Fibroblasts in Tissue Engineering
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The loss or failure of tissues and/or organs is one of the most frequent problems in modern healthcare. The field of tissue engineering applies the principles of biology and engineering in order to develop functional substitutes for damaged tissues. Tissue engineering contains elements of medicine, material science and engineering with major components in focus being cells, biomaterials and soluble factors. All three components may be required for the development of clinical treatments.The usage of autologous tissue specific cells for clinical treatment is often not feasible due to poor growth kinetics or unstable phenotypes of the cells. Furthermore, lack of availability of healthy tissue that can be biopsied is a major problem in many applications. One approach to overcome this problem is to use adult stem cells which have the capacity to give rise to several different cell types. Although promising, adult stem cells have major impediments for use in several tissue engineering applications. The difficulties associated with harvest, culture and storage render problems in the development of clinically relevant procedures.During the last years, the inherent plasticity of differentiated somatic cells has been demonstrated. One of the easiest human cell types to obtain, expand and store is the dermal fibroblast. Recent reports indicate that dermal fibroblasts can be induced to differentiate towards several distinct mesenchymal lineages in vitro.The main aim of this thesis was to investigate the inherent stem cell plasticity of human dermal fibroblasts and explore their possible usefulness in tissue engineering applications. The papers included in this thesis employ routine and immunohistochemical staining, enzyme activity assay, analysis of low density lipoprotein incorporation, capillary-like network formation assay and full expression micro array analysis.Fibroblasts were shown to differentiate towards adipocyte, chondrocyte, endothelial and osteoblast-like cell types in vitro. The differentiation from fibroblasts to myofibroblasts in burn scar tissue upon stimulation by mechanical tension was also demonstrated. Adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic induced fibroblasts display the upregulation of several genes associated with adipocytes, chondrocytes and osteoblasts.
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| 2. |
- Kattge, Jens, et al.
(författare)
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TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:1, s. 119-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
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