细胞功能测定

In mammals, methylation of cytosine C-5 position is a major heritable epigenetic mark on the DNA molecule. Maintenance of proper DNA methylation patterns is a key process during embryo development and in the maintenance of adult tissue homeostasis. The use of experimental procedures based ...

Replication interference by specific chromosomal sequences—such as trinucleotide repeats—plays a causative, though undefined role in the aetiology of human disease, especially neurodegenerative syndromes. However, studies on these mechanisms in human cells have been ha ...

The detailed understanding of the DNA replication process requires structural insight. The combination of psoralen cross-linking and electron microscopy has been extensively exploited to reveal the fine architecture of in vivo DNA replication intermediates. This approach p ...

The targeted delivery of fluorescently labeled, DNA-modifying proteins into cellular nuclei permits investigation of DNA damage and chromatin function in living cells. Commercially available protein delivery vectors cannot provide selective intranuclear transport ...

Degradation of apoptotic cells is finalized during the phagocytic waste-management phase of apoptosis. This eliminates genetic material present in dying cells which often contain pathological, viral, or cancerous DNA. In the waste-management phase, chromatin of apoptotic cel ...

The combined use of fluorescence microscopy with atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been introduced to analyze the replication-banding patterns of human chromosomes. Human lymphocytes synchronized with excess thymidine are treated with 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (EdU) dur ...

Structural and immunohistochemical methods have been extremely useful for the characterization of the XY body (the structure formed by the XY pair during meiotic prophase) in Man and in other mammals. These methods are widely used at the present time for the detection of abnormalities leadi ...

This chapter describes the various methods derived from the protocol of standard fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) that are used in human, animal, plant, and microbial studies. These powerful techniques allow us to detect and physically map on interphase nuclei, chromatin fiber ...

Cartilage tissue engineering is a promising technology to restore and repair cartilage lesions in the body. In recent years, significant advances have been made using stem cells as a cell source for clinical goals of cartilage tissue engineering. Menstrual blood-derived stem cells (Men ...

As opposed to culture on standard tissue-treated plastic, cell culture on three-dimensional scaffolds impedes additional challenges with respect to substrate preparation, cell seeding, culture maintenance, and analysis. We herewith present a general route for the culture of pr ...

Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) are multipotent cells that are emerging as an extremely promising therapeutic agent for tissue regeneration. The ability to manipulate ASC phenotypes by the delivery of biologically active cargoes is essential to understand their role and to design ...

Genetic modification of embryonic stem (ES) cells is a valuable technique when combined with cell replacement strategies. Obtaining stable transgene expression and low-cytotoxicity lentiviral transduction of ES cells is advantageous. It has been shown that the efficiency of tra ...

Self-assembled peptide nanofibers are versatile materials providing suitable platforms for regenerative medicine applications. This chapter describes the use of peptide nanofibers as extracellular matrix mimetic scaffolds for two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimen ...

The design of new bioactive materials, provided with “instructive properties” and able to regulate stem cell behavior, is the goal for several research groups involved in tissue engineering. This new function, commonly reserved for growth factors, can lead to the development of a new class of i ...

From the perspective of deep tissue imaging, it is required that the excitation light can penetrate deep enough to excite the sample of interest and the fluorescence emission is strong enough to be detected. The longer wavelengths like near infrared are absorbed less by the tissue and are scatter ...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represent multipotent stromal cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types, including osteoblasts (bone cells), chondrocytes (cartilage cells), and adipocytes (fat cells). Their multi-potency provides a great promise as a cell source for t ...

Three-dimensional (3D) in vitro models of cell culture aim to fill the gap between the standard 2D cell studies and the in vivo environment. Especially for neural tissue regeneration approaches where there is little regenerative capacity, such models must rely on scaffolds that mimic the ext ...

Stem cells isolated from the Wharton’s jelly of the human umbilical cord (hWJSCs) are unique compared to other stem cell types as they lie in between embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on the developmental map and share stemness markers of ESCs and MSCs. Yet, they do not in ...

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) currently represent a major cell resource in the research laboratory, to study differentiated-cell behavior in 3D scaffolds during the regeneration processes. Adhesion and differentiation of stem cells to a specific phenotype are achieved by cu ...

Due to the increasing use of engineered nanoparticles in many consumer products, rapid and economic tests for evaluating possible adverse effects on human health are urgently needed. In the present chapter the use of mouse embryonic stem cells as a valuable tool to in vitro screen nanoparticle ...