Canine mesenchymal stem cells are neurotrophic and angiogenic:an in vitro assessment of their paracrine activity

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been used in cell replacement therapies for connective tissue damage, but also can stimulate wound healing through paracrine activity. In order to further understand the potential use of MSCs to treat dogs with neurological disorders, this study examined the paracrine action of adipose-derived canine MSCs on neuronal and endothelial cell models. The culture-expanded MSCs exhibited a MSC phenotype according to plastic adherence, cell morphology, CD profiling and differentiation potential along mesenchymal lineages. Treating the SH-SY5Y neuronal cell line with serum-free MSC culture-conditioned medium (MSC CM) significantly increased SH-SY5Y cell proliferation (P < 0.01), neurite outgrowth (P = 0.0055) and immunopositivity for the neuronal marker βIII-tubulin (P = 0.0002). Treatment of the EA.hy926 endothelial cell line with MSC CM significantly increased the rate of wound closure in endothelial cell scratch wound assays (P = 0.0409), which was associated with significantly increased endothelial cell proliferation (P < 0.05) and migration (P = 0.0001). Furthermore, canine MSC CM induced endothelial tubule formation in EA.hy926 cells in a soluble basement membrane matrix. Hence, this study has demonstrated that adipose-derived canine MSC CM stimulated neuronal and endothelial cells probably through the paracrine activity of MSC-secreted factors. This supports the use of canine MSC transplants or their secreted products in the clinical treatment of dogs with neurological disorders and provides some insight into possible mechanisms of action

Face validity of a proposed tool for staging canine osteoarthritis: Canine OsteoArthritis Staging Tool (COAST)

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common, progressive degenerative disease of synovial joints. It can develop subsequent to an acquired disorder such as joint trauma but is primarily driven by developmental orthopedic disease in young dogs. Therefore, it is essentially characterised as an early onset but lifelong disease that worsens with age. Early intervention using a multi-modal drug and non-drug approach, with or without surgery as required, has the greatest potential for the most effective management of the disease. Timely implementation of a continuing care plan provides an opportunity to slow the rate of deterioration by reducing the negative impacts of OA-associated pain, encouraging appropriate levels of activity and improving strength and posture. Unfortunately, many dogs are presented to veterinary clinics only when marked behavioural changes are observed and substantial deterioration of the musculoskeletal and somatosensory systems has already occurred. To assist veterinarians with early and stage-specific diagnosis of OA in dogs, the authors present a proposed, practical diagnostic aid called 'COAST' (Canine OsteoArthritis Staging Tool) with face validity. As indicated by the successful implementation of staging systems for other companion animal diseases, it is expected that standardized staging of OA in dogs will help guide disease management plans and improve monitoring. The items used to construct COAST have been developed using consensus opinion of international experts from nine countries, who are actively working in the fields of small animal orthopaedics, anaesthesia and pain management. Further validation (test-retest, discriminatory ability, responsiveness, criterion validation) of the tool under field conditions is now required and the authors invite input

The Structure and Dynamics of the Upper Chromosphere and Lower Transition Region as Revealed by the Subarcsecond VAULT Observations

The Very high Angular resolution ULtraviolet Telescope (VAULT) is a sounding rocket payload built to study the crucial interface between the solar chromosphere and the corona by observing the strongest line in the solar spectrum, the Ly-a line at 1216 {\AA}. In two flights, VAULT succeeded in obtaining the first ever sub-arcsecond (0.5") images of this region with high sensitivity and cadence. Detailed analyses of those observations have contributed significantly to new ideas about the nature of the transition region. Here, we present a broad overview of the Ly-a atmosphere as revealed by the VAULT observations, and bring together past results and new analyses from the second VAULT flight to create a synthesis of our current knowledge of the high-resolution Ly-a Sun. We hope that this work will serve as a good reference for the design of upcoming Ly-a telescopes and observing plans.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figure

Inferring Deleterious-Mutation Parameters in Natural Daphnia Populations

Deng and Lynch (1, 2) proposed to characterize deleterious genomic mutations from changes in the mean and genetic variance of fitness traits upon selfing in outcrossing populations. Such observations can be readily acquired in cyclical parthenogens. Selfing and life-table experiments were performed for two such Daphnia populations. A significant inbreeding depression and an increase of genetic variance for all traits analyzed were observed. Deng and Lynch's (2) procedures were employed to estimate the genomic mutation rate (U), mean dominance coefficient ( [Image: see text] ), mean selection coefficient ( [Image: see text] ), and scaled genomic mutational variance ( [Image: see text] ). On average, [Image: see text] , [Image: see text] , [Image: see text] and [Image: see text] (^ indicates an estimate) are 0.84, 0.30, 0.14 and 4.6E-4 respectively. For the true values, the [Image: see text] and [Image: see text] are lower bounds, and [Image: see text] and [Image: see text] upper bounds

Time-integrated luminosity recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e+e- collider

This article is the Preprint version of the final published artcile which can be accessed at the link below.We describe a measurement of the time-integrated luminosity of the data collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at the ϒ(4S), ϒ(3S), and ϒ(2S) resonances and in a continuum region below each resonance. We measure the time-integrated luminosity by counting e+e-→e+e- and (for the ϒ(4S) only) e+e-→μ+μ- candidate events, allowing additional photons in the final state. We use data-corrected simulation to determine the cross-sections and reconstruction efficiencies for these processes, as well as the major backgrounds. Due to the large cross-sections of e+e-→e+e- and e+e-→μ+μ-, the statistical uncertainties of the measurement are substantially smaller than the systematic uncertainties. The dominant systematic uncertainties are due to observed differences between data and simulation, as well as uncertainties on the cross-sections. For data collected on the ϒ(3S) and ϒ(2S) resonances, an additional uncertainty arises due to ϒ→e+e-X background. For data collected off the ϒ resonances, we estimate an additional uncertainty due to time dependent efficiency variations, which can affect the short off-resonance runs. The relative uncertainties on the luminosities of the on-resonance (off-resonance) samples are 0.43% (0.43%) for the ϒ(4S), 0.58% (0.72%) for the ϒ(3S), and 0.68% (0.88%) for the ϒ(2S).This work is supported by the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physiquedes Particules (France), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (The Netherlands), the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie IEF program (European Union) and the A.P. Sloan Foundation (USA)

Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events

The $B^0$-$\bar B^0$ oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of 23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives $\Delta m_d = 0.493 \pm 0.012{(stat)}\pm 0.009{(syst)}$ ps$^{-1}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter