| 1. |
- Aulin, Cecilia, 1979-
(författare)
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Extracellular Matrix Based Materials for Tissue Engineering
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The extracellular matrix is (ECM) is a network of large, structural proteins and polysaccharides, important for cellular behavior, tissue development and maintenance. Present thesis describes work exploring ECM as scaffolds for tissue engineering by manipulating cells cultured in vitro or by influencing ECM expression in vivo. By culturing cells on polymer meshes under dynamic culture conditions, deposition of a complex ECM could be achieved, but with low yields. Since the major part of synthesized ECM diffused into the medium the rate limiting step of deposition was investigated. This quantitative analysis showed that the real rate limiting factor is the low proportion of new proteins which are deposited as functional ECM. It is suggested that cells are pre-embedded in for example collagen gels to increase the steric retention and hence functional deposition. The possibility to induce endogenous ECM formation and tissue regeneration by implantation of growth factors in a carrier material was investigated. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) is a growth factor known to be involved in growth and differentiation of bone and cartilage tissue. The BMP-2 processing and secretion was examined in two cell systems representing endochondral (chondrocytes) and intramembranous (mesenchymal stem cells) bone formation. It was discovered that chondrocytes are more efficient in producing BMP-2 compared to MSC. The role of the antagonist noggin was also investigated and was found to affect the stability of BMP-2 and modulate its effect. Finally, an injectable gel of the ECM component hyaluronan has been evaluated as delivery vehicle in cartilage regeneration. The hyaluronan hydrogel system showed promising results as a versatile biomaterial for cartilage regeneration, could easily be placed intraarticulary and can be used for both cell based and cell free therapies.
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| 2. |
- Mamontov, Eugen, 1955, et al.
(författare)
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The minimal, phase-transition model for the cell-number maintenance by the hyperplasia-extended homeorhesis
- 2006
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Ingår i: Acta Biotheoretica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0001-5342 .- 1572-8358. ; 54:2, s. 61-101
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Oncogenic hyperplasia is the first and inevitable stage of formation of a (solid) tumor. This stage is also the core of many other proliferative diseases. The present work proposes the first minimal model that combines homeorhesis with oncogenic hyperplasia where the latter is regarded as a genotoxically activated homeorhetic dysfunction. This dysfunction is specified as the transitions of the fluid of cells from a fluid, homeorhetic state to a solid, hyperplastic-tumor state, and back. The key part of the model is a nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation (RDE) where the biochemical-reaction rate is generalized to the one in the well-known Schlögl physical theory of the non-equilibrium phase transitions. A rigorous analysis of the stability and qualitative aspects of the model, where possible, are presented in detail. This is related to the spatially homogeneous case, i.e. when the above RDE is reduced to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. The mentioned genotoxic activation is treated as a prevention of the quiescent G0-stage of the cell cycle implemented with the threshold mechanism that employs the critical concentration of the cellular fluid and the nonquiescent-cell-duplication time. The continuous tumor morphogeny is described by a time-space-dependent cellular-fluid concentration. There are no sharp boundaries (i.e. no concentration jumps exist) between the domains of the homeorhesis- and tumor-cell populations. No presumption on the shape of a tumor is used. To estimate a tumor in specific quantities, the model provides the time-dependent tumor locus, volume, and boundary that also points out the tumor shape and size. The above features are indispensable in the quantitative development of antiproliferative drugs or therapies and strategies to prevent oncogenic hyperplasia in cancer and other proliferative diseases. The work proposes an analytical-numerical method for solving the aforementioned RDE. A few topics for future research are suggested.
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| 3. |
- Cutas, Daniela, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Legal imperialism in the regulation of stem cell research and therapy: the problem of extraterritorial jurisdiction
- 2010
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Ingår i: Capps BJ & Campbell AV (eds.). CONTESTED CELLS: Global Perspectives on the Stem Cell Debate. - London : Imperial College Press. - 9781848164376 ; , s. 95-119
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Countries worldwide have very different national regulations on human embryonic stem (ES) cell research, informed by a range of ethical values. Some countries find reason to extend the applicability of their regulations on such research to its citizens when they visit other countries. Extraterritorial jurisdiction has recently been identified as a potential challenge towards global regulation of ES cell research. This chapter explores the implications and impact of extraterritorial jurisdiction and global regulation of ES cell research on researchers, clinicians and national health systems, and how this may affect patients. The authors argue that it would make ethical sense for ES cell restrictive countries to extend its regulations on ES cell research beyond its borders, because, if these countries really consider embryo destruction to be objectionable on the basis on the status of the embryo, then they ought to count it morally on par with murder (and thus have a moral imperative to protect embryos from the actions of its own citizens). However, doing so could lead to a legal situation that would result in substantial harm to central values in areas besides research, such as health care, the job market, basic freedom of movement, and strategic international finance and politics. Thus, it seems that restrictive extraterritorial jurisdiction in respect to ES cell research would be deeply problematic, given that the ethical permissibility of ES cell research is characterised by deep and wide disagreement.
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| 4. |
- Munthe, Christian, 1962
(författare)
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Etiska aspekter på regenerativ medicin : Ethical aspects on regenerative medicine
- 2003
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Ingår i: SNIB-konferensen 2003, Chalmers tekniska högskola, Göteborg, 16-18 maj 2003.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Inom den regenerativa medicinen strävar man efter att ersätta skadat eller sjukligt biologiskt mänskligt material (celler, organ, kroppsdelar) med nya biologiska komponenter. Området aktualiserar en rad etiska frågeställningar vad gäller (1) produktionen av ersättningsmaterialet (t.ex. embryonala stamceller eller införskaffande av transplantationsvävnad från donatorer), (2) risker i samband med försök på människa (genmodifierat material, material från djur), samt (3) gränserna för hur långt man bör gå i denna slags försök att förlänga människans livsspann. Föredraget ger en kort översikt över dessa frågeställningar, ståndpunkter och argument i debatten kring dem.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Carlsson, Stina K., 1982-
(författare)
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Effects of adenosine and acetylcholine on the lacrimal gland
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A balanced tear film is essential for a healthy ocular surface. Insufficient tear production may result in dry eye, a common disorder in the elderly population. Dry eye causes significant discomfort in the patients and may lead to visual impairment and ocular infections. The lacrimal gland secretes water, proteins and electrolytes to the aqueous layer of the tear film. Lacrimal gland secretion is tightly regulated by e.g. neuronally released acetylcholine. The effect of acetylcholine on lacrimal gland secretion was recently found to be potentiated by adenosine. Adenosine is an important signaling molecule acting upon the adenosine receptors: A1, A2A, A2B and A3.The aim of this thesis was to study effects of adenosine and acetylcholine on intracellular signaling pathways and lacrimal gland secretion. Cholinergic stimulation of secretion was shown to be regulated by the mitogen activated protein kinase p38, a protein previously not known to be involved in exocrine secretion. p38 was activated in response to cholinergic stimulation and inhibition of p38 significantly diminished cholinergic secretion.When investigating adenosine effects, potentiation of cholinergic secretion was observed by activation of the A2B receptor in addition to the previously studied A1 receptor. An A2 receptor agonist increased cholinergic rabbit lacrimal gland protein secretion at several concentrations. The increase was inhibited by antagonism of the A2B receptor, but not the A2A receptor. When investigating the intracellular signaling pathways following adenosine and acetylcholine receptor activation, adenosine was shown to increase of cAMP levels. An additional increase in cAMP levels was observed after parallel adenosine and cholinergic receptor activation. Inhibition of Ca2+ release from the endoplasmic reticulum had inhibitory effects of cholinergic stimulation of secretion. In addition, the expression of adenosine receptors in a mouse model of autoimmune dry eye was investigated. The results showed a lymphocyte dependent upregulation of A2A receptors in diseased mice compared to controls.In conclusion, the results in this thesis provide significant contributions in the search of dry eye therapeutics through studies of adenosine and acetylcholine receptor activation.
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| 7. |
- Jörnsten, Rebecka, 1971, et al.
(författare)
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Network modeling of the transcriptional effects of copy number aberrations in glioblastoma
- 2011
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Ingår i: Molecular Systems Biology. - : EMBO. - 1744-4292. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- DNA copy number aberrations (CNAs) are a hallmark of cancer genomes. However, little is known about how such changes affect global gene expression. We develop a modeling framework, EPoC (Endogenous Perturbation analysis of Cancer), to (1) detect disease-driving CNAs and their effect on target mRNA expression, and to (2) stratify cancer patients into long- and short-term survivors. Our method constructs causal network models of gene expression by combining genome-wide DNA- and RNA-level data. Prognostic scores are obtained from a singular value decomposition of the networks. By applying EPoC to glioblastoma data from The Cancer Genome Atlas consortium, we demonstrate that the resulting network models contain known disease-relevant hub genes, reveal interesting candidate hubs, and uncover predictors of patient survival. Targeted validations in four glioblastoma cell lines support selected predictions, and implicate the p53-interacting protein Necdin in suppressing glioblastoma cell growth. We conclude that large-scale network modeling of the effects of CNAs on gene expression may provide insights into the biology of human cancer. Free software in MATLAB and R is provided.
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| 8. |
- Senkowski, Wojciech
(författare)
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High-throughput screening using multicellular tumor spheroids to reveal and exploit tumor-specific vulnerabilities
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High-throughput drug screening (HTS) in live cells is often a vital part of the preclinical anticancer drug discovery process. So far, two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell cultures have been the most prevalent model in HTS endeavors. However, 2D cell cultures often fail to recapitulate the complex microenvironments of in vivo tumors. Monolayer cultures are highly proliferative and generally do not contain quiescent cells, thought to be one of the main reasons for the anticancer therapy failure in clinic. Thus, there is a need for in vitro cellular models that would increase predictive value of preclinical research results. The utilization of more complex three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures, such as multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTS), which contain both proliferating and quiescent cells, has therefore been proposed. However, difficult handling and high costs still pose significant hurdles for application of MCTS for HTS.In this work, we aimed to develop novel assays to apply MCTS for HTS and drug evaluation. We also set out to identify cellular processes that could be targeted to selectively eradicate quiescent cancer cells. In Paper I, we developed a novel MCTS-based HTS assay and found that nutrient-deprived and hypoxic cancer cells are selectively vulnerable to treatment with inhibitors of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). We also identified nitazoxanide, an FDA-approved anthelmintic agent, to act as an OXPHOS inhibitor and to potentiate the effects of standard chemotherapy in vivo. Subsequently, in Paper II we applied the high-throughput gene-expression profiling method for MCTS-based drug screening. This led to discovery that quiescent cells up-regulate the mevalonate pathway upon OXPHOS inhibition and that the combination of OXPHOS inhibitors and mevalonate pathway inhibitors (statins) results in synergistic toxicity in this cell population. In Paper III, we developed a novel spheroid-based drug combination-screening platform and identified a set of molecules that synergize with nitazoxanide to eradicate quiescent cancer cells. Finally, in Paper IV, we applied our MCTS-based methods to evaluate the effects of phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors in PDE3A-expressing cell lines.In summary, this work illustrates how MCTS-based HTS yields potential to reveal and exploit previously unrecognized tumor-specific vulnerabilities. It also underscores the importance of cell culture conditions in preclinical drug discovery endeavors.
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| 9. |
- Eriksson, Leif A., 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Tetrazole derivatives as cytochrome p450 inhibitors
- 2019
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Patent (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- According to the invention there is provided a compound of formula I, wherein R1 and R2 have meanings given in the description, which compounds are useful in the treatment of skin disorders and other diseases.
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| 10. |
- Mamontov, Eugen, 1955, et al.
(författare)
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What stochastic mechanics are relevant to the study of living systems?
- 2005
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. Section B: Natural, Exact and Applied Sciences. - Riga, Latvia : Latvian Academy of Sciences. - 1407-009X. ; 59:6, s. 255-262
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biologists have identified many features of living systems which cannot be studied by application of fundamental statistical mechanics (FSM). The present work focuses on some of these features. By discussing all the basic approaches of FSM, the work formulates the extension of the kinetic-theory paradigm (based on the reduced one-particle distribution function) that possesses all the considered properties of the living systems. This extension appears to be a model within the generalized-kinetic theory developed by N. Bellomo and his co-authors. In connection with this model, the work also stresses some other features necessary for making the model relevant to living systems. An example is discussed, which is a generalized kinetic equation coupled with the probability-density equation which represents the varying component content of a living system. The work also suggests directions for future research.
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