Simple Summary Regenerative medicine using platelet-based blood products or adult stem cells offers the prospect of better clinical outcomes with many diseases. In veterinary medicine, most progress has been made with the development and therapeutic use of these regenerative therapeutics in horses, but the clinical need is given in dogs as well. Our aim was to transfer previous advances in the development of horse regenerative therapeutics, specifically the use of platelet lysate for feeding stem cell cultures, to the dog. Here, we describe the scalable production of canine platelet lysate, which could be used in regenerative biological therapies. We also evaluated the canine platelet lysate for its suitability in feeding canine stem cell cultures in comparison to equine platelet lysate used for equine stem cell cultures. Platelet lysate production from canine blood was successful, but the platelet lysate did not support stem cell culture in dogs in the same beneficial way observed with the equine platelet lysate and stem cells. In conclusion, canine platelet lysate can be produced in large scales as described here, but further research is needed to improve the cultivation of canine stem cells. Abstract Platelet lysate (PL) is an attractive platelet-based therapeutic tool and has shown promise as xeno-free replacement for fetal bovine serum (FBS) in human and equine mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) culture. Here, we established a scalable buffy-coat-based protocol for canine PL (cPL) production (n = 12). The cPL was tested in canine adipose MSC (n = 5) culture compared to FBS. For further comparison, equine adipose MSC (n = 5) were cultured with analogous equine PL (ePL) or FBS. During canine blood processing, platelet and transforming growth factor-β1 concentrations increased (p < 0.05 and p < 0.001), while white blood cell concentrations decreased (p < 0.05). However, while equine MSC showed good results when cultured with 10% ePL, canine MSC cultured with 2.5% or 10% cPL changed their morphology and showed decreased metabolic activity (p < 0.05). Apoptosis and necrosis in canine MSC were increased with 2.5% cPL (p < 0.05). Surprisingly, passage 5 canine MSC showed less genetic aberrations after culture with 10% cPL than with FBS. Our data reveal that using analogous canine and equine biologicals does not entail the same results. The buffy-coat-based cPL was not adequate for canine MSC culture, but may still be useful for therapeutic applications.

No description available.

Hyperglycemia and dyslipidemia are common comorbidities that often coincide and have a significant impact on the severity of diabetes. This current study investigates the pathology and mechanism behind skeletal muscle cachexia and cardiac dysfunction in diabetic dyslipidemia. Stem cells continue to be critical as a regenerative strategy to restore damaged tissue, however, several drawbacks have been observed with use of stem cells including thrombogenesis, low survival, and tumorigenicity. Therefore, we isolated exosomes from stem cells and assessed their ability to attenuate diabetes-induced sarcopenia and cardiomyopathy. Exosomes are nanosized particles released by cells, containing proteins and nucleic acids that allow it to exhibit similar properties to the cell type of origin. To model diabetic dyslipidemia, we utilized ApoE knockout mice (10±2 weeks) and divided them into 4 groups consisting of control (saline intraperitoneal (IP) injection), diabetic (STZ IP injection), treatment group administered intravenous (IV) exosomes derived from miR-1 ES-Exos (microRNA-1 enriched Embryonic Stem Cells) or MSC-Exos (Mesenchymal Stem Cells), and negative control treatment MEF-Exos (Mouse Embryonic Fibroblasts). Heart and soleus tissue samples were analyzed for inflammation, inflammatory cell death expression, and adverse tissue remodeling using histology, immunohistochemistry, western blotting, RT-PCR, cytokine, and luciferase-based arrays. In summary we found diabetic dyslipidemic mice acquire cardiac and skeletal muscle dysfunction. Administration of miR-1 ES-Exos and MSC-Exos significantly mitigated inflammation and cell death marker expression, resulting in improved cardiac and skeletal muscle function. In conclusion our data shows that miR-1 ES-Exos and MSC-Exos are effective therapeutic agents in attenuating diabetes-induced sarcopenia and cardiomyopathy.

Les cellules sanguines proviennent d’une cellule souche hématopoïétique (CSE), présente dans la moelle osseuse chez l’homme adulte, qui nécessite d’être en contact étroit avec une zone particulière du microenvironnement médullaire (appelée niche hématopoïétique) pour sa différenciation et son autorenouvellement. La nature exacte des cellules qui composent cette niche (appelée cellules stromales) n’est pas encore bien connue, en particulier concernant sa relation avec les cellules souches mésenchymateuses (CSM). Le but de cette thèse a été d’étudier le rôle des CSM dans la régulation de l’hématopoïèse en fonction de leur type et leur stade de différenciation mésenchymateuse et d’évaluer leur rôle dans la migration des progéniteurs hématopoïétique (PH). Nous montrons que les CSM non différenciées possèdent la capacité de soutien de l’hématopoïèse primitive la plus importante (par culture à long terme pendant 5 semaines) et que cette capacité est rapidement perdue dès 3 jours de différenciation adipogénique, otéogénique et vasculaire musculaire lisse. Par ailleurs, nous montrons que le G-CSP agit directement sur les CSM pour augmenter la migration des CSH/PH hors de la niche (par un test de migration trans-stromale) via un mécanisme MMP-2 dépendant. / Blood cells arise from a hematopoietic stem cell (HSC), present into bone marrow (3M) in adult humans, which needs close contacts with a special zone of 3M micro environment (named hematopoietic niche) for its differentiation and self’-renewal. The precise nature of the niche-forming cells (named stromale cells) are not yet well known, particularly in their relationship with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The aim of the study was to investigate further the role of the MSCs in the hematopoiesis control according to their differentiation pathway and state and to evaluate their role in the migration process of hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPÇ,[ We show that non-differentiated MSCs display the best hematopoietic supporting activity (using 5-week long term cultures) that is completely lost after in vitro differentiation into adipocytes, osteoblasts and vascular smooth muscle cells. In addition, we show that G-CSP stimulation of 3M MSCs promotes HSC/HPC migration (using trans-stromal migration assay) via a MMP-2-dependent mechanism.

In this paper we study parameter estimation via the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm for a continuous-time hidden Markov model with diffusion and point process observation. Inference problems of this type arise for instance in credit risk modelling. A key step in the application of the EM algorithm is the derivation of finite-dimensional filters for the quantities that are needed in the E-Step of the algorithm. In this context we obtain exact, unnormalized and robust filters, and we discuss their numerical implementation. Moreover, we propose several goodness-of-fit tests for hidden Markov models with Gaussian noise and point process observation. We run an extensive simulation study to test speed and accuracy of our methodology. The paper closes with an application to credit risk: we estimate the parameters of a hidden Markov model for credit quality where the observations consist of rating transitions and credit spreads for US corporations.

As células estromais mesenquimais (CMMs) se tornaram de grande interesse para a terapia celular devido ao seu potencial de se diferenciar e reconstituir tecidos especializados. Mais recentemente, este interesse tem aumentado significativamente devido à descoberta de que as CMMs são capazes de secretar uma infinidade de mediadores para estimular a regeneração in situ de tecidos lesados. Dessa forma, CMMs podem ser consideradas tanto como um produto terapêutico em si, quanto uma biofábrica de diversas proteínas relevantes do ponto de vista terapêutico. Para atender a estas crescentes demandas, ambas as aplicações requerem o desenvolvimento de processos de expansão celular com alto rendimento, sob condições de cultivo definidas, reprodutíveis, escalonáveis, permitindo a obtenção de produtos com adequada identidade, potência, pureza, segurança e viáveis economicamente. Frente ao exposto, este trabalho teve como objetivos principais o estabelecimento de um processo de expansão de CMMs baseado em biorreatores e a caracterização do secretoma destas células visando aplicações terapêuticas. Para isto, a expansão de CMMs do cordão umbilical (MCUs) foi realizada em frascos multicamadas (MC) e nos biorreatores de leito fixo (LF), tanque agitado com microcarregadores (TA) e fibrasocas (FO). Os resultados mostraram que a taxa de proliferação específica das células foi maior (< tempo de duplicação) no biorreator de FO (36,8 ± 1,7 horas), bem como o fator de expansão (9,8 ± 1,0) e a eficiência na recuperação celular (100%). Um nível similar de produção celular foi observado para o TA, MC e LF com elevado fator de expansão celular (8,8 ± 0,39, 8,7 ± 0,90, 6,9 ± 1,3, respectivamente). No entanto, em termos de eficiência na recuperação celular (%), LF apresentou a menor taxa de recuperação dentre todos os sistemas (18% (± 0,77)), acompanhado pelo TA (61% (± 15,7)). As células mantiveram suas características imunofenotípicas e o potencial de diferenciação em adipócitos, osteócitos e condrócitos em todos os sistemas de cultivo avaliados. Foi também realizada a análise de custos (COG) e avaliação da viabilidade econômica para produção de CMMs visando tratamento da doença do enxerto contra o hospedeiro (DECH) em escala comercial, utilizando os sistemas de cultivo avaliados experimentalmente sob diferentes estratégias de reembolso. Apesar dos resultados experimentais satisfatórios para o biorreator FO, o COG revelou que este sistema tem o maior custo devido aos elevados custos dos consumíveis requeridos e do custo do equipamento. O frasco MC foi considerado como a tecnologia mais rentável e robusta no cenário avaliado e o biorreator TA obteve a segunda posição. O biorreator TA foi escolhido como o mais adequado analisando de maneira conjunta os dados experimentais obtidos, a análise dos custos dos diferentes sistemas de cultivo e a escalonabilidade de cada sistema. Assim, esse biorreator foi eficientemente utilizado para o cultivo de MCUs em condições isentas de SFB e xenoantígenos, sendo possível a produção de uma grande quantidade de células, representando um passo importante no desenvolvimento de um bioprocesso em conformidade com as normas das agências regulatórias. Por fim, com a análise do secretoma das CMMs por espectrometria de massas foi possível a identificação de uma gama enorme de proteínas interessantes (aprox. 2400) envolvidas em importantes processos biológicos. O futuro monitoramento dessas proteínas em biorreatores poderá representar um método inovador e original de produção de produtos livres de células para uso na terapia celular. / Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC) have become of great interest for cell therapy because of its potential to differentiate and reconstitute specialized tissues. More recently, such interest has significantly increased due to the discovery that MSC are capable of secreting a plethora of mediators to stimulate the in situ regeneration of injured tissues. Thus, MSC can be considered as a therapeutic product itself and as a biofactory of various relevant therapeutic proteins. To meet these increasing demands, both applications require the development of high-yield, reproducible, scalable and cost-effective bioprocesses under defined culture conditions, obtaining products with proper identity, purity and safety. Based on these, the main goal of this work was the establishment of a MSC expansion process based on bioreactors and secretome characterization of these cells targeting therapeutic applications. The MSC expansion was performed using multi-layered flasks (ML) and fixed bed (PB), stirred tank (STR) and hollow fiber (HF) bioreactors. The results showed that the proliferation rate of the cells was higher (< doubling time) in the HF bioreactor (36.8 ± 1.7 hours), as well as the expansion fold-increase (9.8±1.0) and harvesting efficiency (100%). A similar level of cell production was observed for STR, ML and PB with high fold-increase (8.8±0.39, 8.7±0.90, 6.9±1.3, respectively). However, in terms of harvesting efficiency (%), PB bioreactor presented the lowest retrieval rate across all the technologies (18% (±0.77)), followed by STR (61% (±15.7)). The cells retained their functional properties after culture in all the culture systems evaluated. This study was then extended through the use of a bioprocess economics tool for the evaluation of the economic feasibility of producing MSC-based treatment for acute graft vs. host disease (aGvHD) at commercial scale, using the culture systems experimentally evaluated under different reimbursement strategies. Despite the advantageous experimental results of HF bioreactors, the COG analysis has revealed that this is the least cost effective cell culture system to be used, due to its high consumable and equipment costs. ML flasks ranked first as the most cost effective and robust technology in this scenario and microcarrier-based technologies (STR) ranked in second position. The STR bioreactor was chosen as the most suitable for MSC expansion analyzing the experimental data, COG analysis and scalability of each culture system. Thus, STR bioreactor was efficiently tested for MSC expansion under serum and xeno-free conditions and it was possible to produce a large amount of cells. The development of a scalable microcarrier-based stirred culture system using xeno-free culture medium that suits the intrinsic features of UCM-derived MSC represents an important step towards a GMP compliant large-scale production platform for these promising cell therapy candidates. Finally, with the MSC secretome analysis by mass spectrometry it was possible to identify a wide range of interesting proteins (approx. 2400) involved in important biological processes. The future monitoring of these proteins in bioreactors may represent a novel and unique method of producing cell-free products for use in cellular therapy.

A Morte Súbita dos Cítros (MSC) é uma doença que afeta plantas de laranjeira-doce enxertadas em limão Cravo ou Volkameriano e ainda não tem o agente causal determinado. Para entender quais são as principais mudanças fisiológicas causadas pela MSC, analisou-se as alterações nos metabolitos primários, tanto da casca da copa quanto do cavalo. Fez-se análises dos extratos hexânico e alcoólico com RMN em alta resolução e do extrato hexânico com cromatografia gasosa. Também analisou-se os metabolitos diretamente nas cascas com técnicas de RMN em alta e baixa resolução. Com essas análises foi possível observar que a MSC altera a deposição de triacilglicerídeos e sacarose nas cascas. A MSC também modifica o perfil de ácidos graxos, com o decréscimo dos teores de ácido oléico e linolênico e aumento dos ácidos cáprico, láurico, mirístico, plamítico, esteárico e linoléico, com a evolução da doença. Com esses resultados foi possível entender as principais alterações bioquímicas causadas pela MSC, como também demonstrar que elas podem ser usadas de forma complementar no diagnóstico da doença. Dentre todos os métodos avaliados, as análises das cascas com RMN em baixa resolução, com as técnicas CPMG e de precessão livre em onda contínua (CWFP), foram as mais rápidas (em alguns segundos) e eficientes para discriminar as plantas assintomáticas das sintomáticas. A discriminação das plantas pelos dados de RMN foi realizada com métodos quimiométricos como análise de componentes principais (PCA), análises de agrupamentos hierárquicos (HCA) e regressão por mínimos quadrados parciais (PLS). / Citrus Sudden Death (CSD) is a new graft-transmissible disease of sweet orange grafted on Rangpur lime and Citrus volkameriana rootstocks. The causal agent is unknown. To understand the main physiological changes caused by the CSD, we analyzed the variations in the primary metabolites content in the bark of scion and rootstock. The hexanic and hydroalcoholic extracts were analyzed by high resolution NMR. The hexanic extracts were also analyzed by gas chromatography. The metabolites were also analyzed directly in the barks with high and low resolution NMR techniques. With these analyses it was possible to observe that CSD modifies the content of triglycerides and sucrose in the barks. The disease also changes the fatty acids profile, with a decrease in the oleic and linolenic and an increase in the capric, lauric, miristic, palmitic, stearic and linoleic content. With these results it was possible to understand the main biochemical disorders caused for the CSD, as well as to demonstrate that they can be used as complementary information in the disease diagnosis. The analysis of the barks with low resolution NMR techniques CPMG and continuous wave free precession (CWFP), had been the fastest (few seconds) and the most efficient one to discriminate between the symptomless and symptomatic plants. The discrimination of the plants by NMR data had been carried with chemometric methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchic cluster analysis (HCA) and partial least square regression (PLS).

Instead of planktonic growth in nature, many species of bacteria form biofilm to survive in harsh conditions. Although many chronic bacterial infections are caused by bacterial species in a biofilm lifestyle, previous research has focused on studying antibiotic resistance in planktonic growth. Here we used a modified MBEC assay, i.e. biofilm growth on pegs, to determine Escherichia coli biofilm inhibitory concentrations (BIC) of ciprofloxacin, streptomycin and rifampicin and to study the minimal selective concentration (MSC) for ciprofloxacin in E. coli biofilm. We could observe high inhibitory concentrations for all antibiotics in the biofilm pre-formed in media without antibiotics compared to the biofilm formed in antibiotics. We also show preliminary result indicating that sublethal concentrations of ciprofloxacin lead to the selection of ciprofloxacin resistant mutants in biofilm and that the selection level is lower than what was observed in planktonic growing E. coli. With more knowledge in how the biofilm formation precedes in different antibiotic settings, the treatment for chronic biofilm infections used today could be evaluated and changed so that the infections could be eradicated.

We develop and evaluate algorithms for generating random variates for simulation input. One group called automatic, or black-box algorithms can be used to sample from distributions with known density. They are based on the rejection principle. The hat function is generated automatically in a setup step using the idea of transformed density rejection. There the density is transformed into a concave function and the minimum of several tangents is used to construct the hat function. The resulting algorithms are not too complicated and are quite fast. The principle is also applicable to random vectors. A second group of algorithms is presented that generate random variates directly from a given sample by implicitly estimating the unknown distribution. The best of these algorithms are based on the idea of naive resampling plus added noise. These algorithms can be interpreted as sampling from the kernel density estimates. This method can be also applied to random vectors. There it can be interpreted as a mixture of naive resampling and sampling from the multi-normal distribution that has the same covariance matrix as the data. The algorithms described in this paper have been implemented in ANSI C in a library called UNURAN which is available via anonymous ftp. (author's abstract) / Series: Preprint Series / Department of Applied Statistics and Data Processing

Survival of patients with poor prognosis or relapsed haematopoietic malignancies can be markedly improved by allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). HSCT reconstitutes the immune and haematopoietic systems after myeloablative conditioning and inhibits the recurrence of the malignancy by a graft-versus-leukaemia (GVL) response mediated by donor T cells. However, significant post-transplant complications such as graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) continue to plague the event-free survival of this curative procedure. GVHD is facilitated by donor T cells that recognise histocompatibility antigens on host antigen presenting cells (APC), such as dendritic cells (DC). Current treatment options for GVHD are focused on these T cells. However, these treatments result in an increased incidence of infection, graft rejection and relapse. A novel means of immunosuppression in GVHD is the use of multi-potent, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC). MSC are non-immunogenic cells that actively suppress T cell function in vitro, and can resolve steroid-refractory GVHD in the clinic. Despite their use in the clinic, there is a paucity of pre-clinical data. Our aim was to investigate the in vivo efficacy of MSC to control GVHD while maintaining the beneficial GVL effect, and to begin to understand the mechanism by which MSC exert their immunosuppressive effects. We isolated and characterised MSC from murine bone/bone marrow and demonstrated that they suppressed T cell proliferation in vitro, even at low ratios of 1 MSC per 100 T cells. This was true of both donor-derived MSC, and MSC derived from unrelated donors (third party). Importantly, we observed that MSC significantly reduced T cell production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNFα and IFNγ in culture supernatants and that IFNγ plays a key role in the ability of MSC to suppress T cell proliferation. In vivo, we examined the effects of donor-derived MSC on GVHD severity and onset in two myeloablative murine models of HSCT. A major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-mismatched donor-recipient pair combination was used as a proof–of-principle model [UBI-GFP/BL6 (H-2b)àBALB/c (H-2d)], and an MHC-matched, minor histocompatibility antigen (miHA) mismatched donor-recipient pair combination was used to mimic MHC-matched sibling transplantation [UBI-GFP/BL6 (H-2b)àBALB.B (H-2b)]. We examined a number of variables related to MSC infusion including timing, dose and route of injection. We found that early post transplant infusion of MSC by the intraperitoneal injection was most effective at delaying death from GVHD, compared to pre-transplant infusion or intravenous injection. Furthermore, we found that the dose of MSC was critical, as infusion of too few MSC was ineffective and infusion of too many MSC exacerbated the development of GVHD. Taken together, these results suggest that timing, dose and route of injection are all important factors to be considered to ensure successful therapeutic outcome. To investigate the in vivo mechanism of action, we conducted timed sacrifice experiments in the MHC-mismatched model to determine if MSC altered cytokine secretion and cellular effectors, such as DC, known to play a key role in GVHD. Despite the fact that MSC given post-HSCT enter an environment full of activated DC and IFNγ levels, by day 3 and 6 post infusion, these activated DC and IFNγ levels are decreased compared to controls or mice infused with MSC pre-transplant (p<0.05). This confirmed our in vitro data that IFNγ played an important role in MSC-mediated immunosuppression. In addition, when we removed a major source of IFNγ production in vivo by administering the T cell depleting antibody KT3 to mice with or without MSC, we found that although T cell depletion prolonged survival, MSC were unable to further enhance this effect. This was also true when MSC were used in combination with the conventional immunosuppressant cyclosporine. Finally, we examined whether the infusion of MSC would compromise the GVL effect. We found that whilst MSC could delay the onset of GVHD, in our model they did not alter the anti-tumour effects of the donor T cells. Overall, we have shown that MSC can delay but not prevent death from GVHD when administered at an appropriate time and dose and that IFNγ is required for MSC-mediated immunosuppression in our model. These data suggest that patients undergoing HSCT should be monitored for IFNγ, and administered MSC when high levels are reached. Whilst MSC may be a promising therapy for patients with severe GVHD, we highlight that further investigation is warranted before MSC are accepted for widespread use in the clinic. The risks and benefits for transplant recipients should be carefully considered before utilising MSC to treat or prevent GVHD.