Cardiomyocytes from human pluripotent stem cells: from laboratory curiosity to industrial biomedical platform

Cardiomyocytes from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs-CMs) could revolutionise biomedicine. Global burden of heart failure will soon reach USD $90bn, while unexpected cardiotoxicity underlies 28% of drug withdrawals. Advances in hPSC isolation, Cas9/CRISPR genome engineering and hPSC-CM differentiation have improved patient care, progressed drugs to clinic and opened a new era in safety pharmacology. Nevertheless, predictive cardiotoxicity using hPSC-CMs contrasts from failure to almost total success. Since this likely relates to cell immaturity, efforts are underway to use biochemical and biophysical cues to improve many of the ~ 30 structural and functional properties of hPSC-CMs towards those seen in adult CMs. Other developments needed for widespread hPSC-CM utility include subtype specification, cost reduction of large scale differentiation and elimination of the phenotyping bottleneck. This review will consider these factors in the evolution of hPSC-CM technologies, as well as their integration into high content industrial platforms that assess structure, mitochondrial function, electrophysiology, calcium transients and contractility. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Cardiomyocyte Biology: Integration of Developmental and Environmental Cues in the Heart edited by Marcus Schaub and Hughes Abriel

Are graphomotor tasks affected by working in the contralateral hemispace in 6- to 10-year-old children?

Contains fulltext : 58255.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)It has been shown that crossing the midline affects the performance of fine motor skills but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. This issue is particularly important with respect to the development of motor activities such as writing or pointing in children. Forty-eight right-handed children performed goal-directed movements toward targets positioned either at the midline, or in the left (contralateral side), or right (ipsilateral) hemispace. Findings revealed that movements were more accurate in ipsilateral than in contralateral space and their overall accuracy increased by 42% between 6 and 10 years of age. Differences in movement time among hemispaces depended on the joints predominantly involved in producing the movements (wrist versus fingers). Lower accuracy of movements in contralateral workspace is also present when participants do not have to cross the midline but only move within this workspace. In motor proficient children, no developmental trends were found for these hemispace effects

Novel and emerging biotechnological crop protection approaches

Traditional breeding or genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have for a long time been the sole approaches to effectively cope with biotic and abiotic stresses and implement the quality traits of crops. However, emerging diseases as well as unpredictable climate changes affecting agriculture over the entire globe force scientists to find alternative solutions required to quickly overcome seasonal crises. In this review, we first focus on cisgenesis and genome editing as challenging biotechnological approaches for breeding crops more tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, we take into consideration a toolbox of new techniques based on applications of RNA interference and epigenome modifications, which can be adopted for improving plant resilience. Recent advances in these biotechnological applications are mainly reported for non‐model plants and woody crops in particular. Indeed, the characterization of RNAi machinery in plants is fundamental to transform available information into biologically or biotechnologically applicable knowledge. Finally, here we discuss how these innovative and environmentally friendly techniques combined with traditional breeding can sustain a modern agriculture and be of potential contribution to climate change mitigation