Development of three-dimensional tissue engineered bone-oral mucosal composite models

Tissue engineering of bone and oral mucosa have been extensively studied independently. The aim of this study was to develop and investigate a novel combination of bone and oral mucosa in a single 3D in vitro composite tissue mimicking the natural structure of alveolar bone with an overlying oral mucosa. Rat osteosarcoma (ROS) cells were seeded into a hydroxyapatite/tri-calcium phosphate scaffold and bone constructs were cultured in a spinner bioreactor for 3 months. An engineered oral mucosa was fabricated by air/liquid interface culture of immortalized OKF6/TERET-2 oral keratinocytes on collagen gel-embedded fibroblasts. EOM was incorporated into the engineered bone using a tissue adhesive and further cultured prior to qualitative and quantitative assessments. Presto Blue assay revealed that ROS cells remained vital throughout the experiment. The histological and scanning electron microscope examinations showed that the cells proliferated and densely populated the scaffold construct. Micro computed tomography (micro-CT) scanning revealed an increase in closed porosity and a decrease in open and total porosity at the end of the culture period. Histological examination of bone-oral mucosa model showed a relatively differentiated parakeratinized epithelium, evenly distributed fibroblasts in the connective tissue layer and widely spread ROS cells within the bone scaffold. The feasibility of fabricating a novel bone-oral mucosa model using cell lines is demonstrated. Generating human ‘normal’ cell-based models with further characterization is required to optimize the model for in vitro and in vivo applications

Centroid estimation method with sub-pixel resolution for event-based sun sensors

Resumen del trabajo presentado a la 17th Conference on Ph.D Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PRIME), celebrada en Sardinia (Italia) del 12 al 15 de junio de 2022.A new method to obtain sub-pixel measurement resolution for sun sensors based on spiking pixels is presented. The procedure is intended to increase the resolution of the estimated angle. The method uses the profile of incident light to estimate the angle of the vector towards the sun with sub-pixel resolution. Read-out time, data bandwidth, and spatial resolution are improved. Experimental results are provided. The proposed method can be implemented in any asynchronous sun sensor operating in Time-to-First-Spike (TFS) mode.This work was supported by Proyectos de I+D+i de entidades públicas – Convocatoria 2020 P20_01206 (VERSO), by Ayudas a Proyectos de I+D+I Programa Operativo FEDER through Project US-1264940 (SPADARCH), by Spanish Government MINECO and European Regional Development Fund, (ERDF/FEDER) through Project RTI2018-097088-B-C31, and by ONR grant ONR NICOP N00014-19-1-2156.Peer reviewe

HLA class I associations with the severity of COVID-19 disease in the United Arab Emirates.

SARS-CoV-2 appears to induce diverse innate and adaptive immune responses, resulting in different clinical manifestations of COVID-19. Due to their function in presenting viral peptides and initiating the adaptive immune response, certain Human Leucocyte Antigen (HLA) alleles may influence the susceptibility to severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this study, 92 COVID-19 patients from 15 different nationalities, with mild (n = 30), moderate (n = 35), and severe (n = 27) SARS-CoV-2 infection, living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were genotyped for the Class I HLA -A, -C, and -B alleles using next-generation sequencing (NGS) between the period of May 2020 to June 2020. Alleles and inferred haplotype frequencies in the hospitalized patient group (those with moderate to severe disease, n = 62) were compared to non-hospitalized patients (mild or asymptomatic, n = 30). An interesting trend was noted between the severity of COVID-19 and the HLA-C*04 (P = 0.0077) as well as HLA-B*35 (P = 0.0051) alleles. The class I haplotype HLA-C*04-B*35 was also significantly associated (P = 0.0049). The involvement of inflammation, HLA-C*04, and HLA-B*35 in COVID-19 severity highlights the potential roles of both the adaptive and innate immune responses against SARS-CoV-2. Both alleles have been linked to several respiratory diseases, including pulmonary arterial hypertension along with infections caused by the coronavirus and influenza. This study, therefore, supports the potential use of HLA testing in prioritizing public healthcare interventions for patients at risk of COVID-19 infection and disease progression, in addition to providing personalized immunotherapeutic targets

Age distribution in patients with mild (age mean in years: 40 ± 9.8), moderate (age mean in years: 45 ± 11.5), and severe (age mean in years: 53 ± 13.8) conditions.

Dots represent patients. Overall, 37.0% of the patients were between the ages of 40 and 49. Specifically, 43.3% of the non-hospitalized (mild) and 33.8% of the hospitalized (severe and moderate) were between the age of 40 to 49 years old. Of the non-hospitalized and hospitalized cohort, 6.7% and 43.6% were above the age of 49, respectively. A positive trend between age mean and severity can be observed from the graph. Pearson’s correlation indicates a very low positive correlation between COVID-19 severity and age (R² = 0.169) in the entire study cohort.</p

COVID-19 patients with HLA-B*35 genotype and HLA-C*04-B*35 haplotype.

COVID-19 patients with HLA-B*35 genotype and HLA-C*04-B*35 haplotype.</p

Demographics data of the non-hospitalized and non-hospitalized SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.

Demographics data of the non-hospitalized and non-hospitalized SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.</p