To evaluate the effect of deacetylation degree (DDA) on the gelation behavior of thermosensitive chitosan-β glycerol phosphate disodium salt pentahydrate (CH-GP) system and to compare their rheological behaviors before and after gelation. Methods A series of thermosensitive CH-GP samples with different DDAs (70%, 85%, 90%, 97%)were prepared by dissolving CH with 0.1 mol/L HCl solution, 5 samples for every single DDA, and then all these CH-GP solution samples processed the frequency sweep test and temperature sweep test (10-70℃ , 1℃ /min) on AR 2000ex rheometer, with pH value of 7.02. Also, all the results of hydrogel samples were processed a frequency sweep test. Results With CH concentration of 2% (w/v) and pH value of 7.02 , the gelating temperature of CH-GP systems with different DDAs (85%, 90%, 97%) were (59.90 ± 0.08), (48.10 ± 0.08), (37.10 ± 0.11) ℃ , respectively. While the gelating temperature of CH-GP system with 70% DDA was over 70℃ . There were statistically significant differences in temperature and time of gelation among groups with different DDAs (P lt; 0.05). Furthermore, storage modulus of such system raised from dozens Pa to a magnitude of several kPa during gelation , while loss modulus kept almost steady. Conclusion Gelating temperature and mechanical property of the system could be measured objectively by rheological characterization. Thus during designing tissue engineered scaffolds for various purposes, it is helpful applying selected CH with optimal DDA to different target tissues.
Objective To explore an effective method to culture and purify canine bladder transitional epithelial cells.Methods Bladder tissue was obtained from healthy puppy under sterile conditions. Bladder mucosa was removed from the remaining tissue with fine scissor and minced into small pieces, and then were dissociated into single cell suspensions with 0.125% trypsin. The bladder epithelial cells were cultured in defined keratinocyte serum free medium. The cells were passaged and purified by 0.05% trypsin and 0.02% EDTA. Morphological characterization were studied under inverted phase contrast microscope and transmission electron microscope. Expression of cell specific marker protein was assessed by immunohistochemistry. Results Canine bladder transitional epithelial cells could be efficiently cultivated and expanded in serum-free medium without fibroblast contamination. The cells could be passaged 4-6 times without a distinguished decrease in cell proliferation. The cells were characterized by well-developed micro filament and desmosome junction under transmission electron microscope. Immunohistochemical staining with broadly reacting anticytokeratin antibodies (AE1/AE3) confirmed the epithelial phenotype of the cells.Different generations of cells showed diploid cells. Conclusion A large number of bladder transitional epithelial cells can be obtained from small bladder tissue with our digestion method. The cultured bladder epithelial cells can be proliferated to sufficient quantities for further reconstructive purposes.
Automated characterization of different vessel wall tissues including atherosclerotic plaques, branchings and stents from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) gray-scale images was addressed. The texture features of each frame were firstly detected with local binary pattern (LBP), Haar-like and Gabor filter in the present study. Then, a Gentle Adaboost classifier was designed to classify tissue features. The methods were validated with clinically acquired image data. The manual characterization results obtained by experienced physicians were adopted as the golden standard to evaluate the accuracy. Results indicated that the recognition accuracy of lipidic plaques reached 94.54%, while classification precision of fibrous and calcified plaques reached 93.08%. High recognition accuracy can be reached up to branchings 93.20% and stents 93.50%, respectively.
Objective To explore a method of loading exosomes onto absorbable stents. MethodsBy building a stent-(3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane-1, 2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-[methoxy (polyethylene glycol) 5000]-exosomes connection, the exosomes were loaded onto absorbable stents to obtained the exosome-eluting absorbable stents. The surface conditions of the stents and absorption of exosomes were observed by scanning electron microscope and identified through the time-of-flight mass spectrometry; the roughness of the stents’ surfaces was observed by atomic force microscope; the appearances and sizes of the stents were observed by stereomicroscope; and the radial force was tested by tensile test machine. The absorbable stents were used as control. Results The scanning electron microscope observation showed that the exosome-eluting absorbable stents had some small irregular cracks on the surface where many exosomes could be seen. The atomic force microscopy observation showed that within the range of 5 μm2, the surface roughness of the absorbable stents was ±20 nm, while the surface roughness of the exosome-eluting absorbable stents was ±70 nm. In the results of time-of-flight mass spectrometry, both the exosome-eluting absorbable stents and exosomes had a peak at the mass charge ratio of 81 (m/z 81), while the absorbable stents did not have this peak. The peak of exosome-eluting absorbable stents at m/z 73 showed a significant decrease compared to the absorbable stents. The stereomicroscope observation showed that the sizes of exosome-eluting absorbable stents met standards and the surfaces had no cracks, burrs, or depressions. The radial force results of the exosome-eluting absorbable stents met the strength standards of the original absorbable stent. Conclusion By applying the chemical connection method, the exosomes successfully loaded onto the absorbable stents. And the sizes and radial forces of this exosome-eluting absorbable stents meet the standards of the original absorbable stents.