13 research outputs found
Seaweed polysaccharide-based hydrogels used for the regeneration of articular cartilage
This manuscript provides an overview of the in vitro and in vivo studies reported in the
literature focusing on seaweed polysaccharides based hydrogels that have been proposed for
applications in regenerative medicine, particularly, in the field of cartilage tissue engineering.
For a better understanding of the main requisites for these specific applications, the main
aspects of the native cartilage structure, as well as recognized diseases that affect this tissue are
briefly described. Current available treatments are also presented to emphasize the need for
alternative techniques. The following part of this review is centered on the description of the
general characteristics of algae polysaccharides, as well as relevant properties required for
designing hydrogels for cartilage tissue engineering purposes. An in-depth overview of the
most well known seaweed polysaccharide, namely agarose, alginate, carrageenan and ulvan
biopolymeric gels, that have been proposed for engineering cartilage is also provided. Finally,
this review describes and summarizes the translational aspect for the clinical application of
alternative systems emphasizing the importance of cryopreservation and the commercial
products currently available for cartilage treatment.Authors report no declarations of interest. Authors thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for the PhD fellowship of Elena G. Popa (SFRH/BD/64070/2009) and research project (MIT/ECE/0047/2009). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no REGPOT-CT2012-316331-POLARIS
One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants
Abstract: Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000–500,000 species1, 2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida), including green plants (Viridiplantae), glaucophytes (Glaucophyta) and red algae (Rhodophyta). Our analysis provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining the evolution of green plants. Most inferred species relationships are well supported across multiple species tree and supermatrix analyses, but discordance among plastid and nuclear gene trees at a few important nodes highlights the complexity of plant genome evolution, including polyploidy, periods of rapid speciation, and extinction. Incomplete sorting of ancestral variation, polyploidization and massive expansions of gene families punctuate the evolutionary history of green plants. Notably, we find that large expansions of gene families preceded the origins of green plants, land plants and vascular plants, whereas whole-genome duplications are inferred to have occurred repeatedly throughout the evolution of flowering plants and ferns. The increasing availability of high-quality plant genome sequences and advances in functional genomics are enabling research on genome evolution across the green tree of life