Original Origin of Osteoblasts Involved in the Mechanism of Ectopic Bone Formation Induced by KUSA/A1 Cells with Honeycomb Carrier

Abstract: The basic principle of bone tissue engineering is to use seeded stem cells in porous scaffold. Stem cells can proliferate and differentiate into various types of mature cells. A kind of stem cell called KUSA/A1 is a marrow stromal cell, capable of differentiating into three mesenchymal phenotypes: osteocyte, adipocyte, and myocyte by treating with 5-azacytidine in cell culture. Moreover, it has been reported that the mechanism of bone induction by KUSA/A1 cells is similar to intramembranous ossification. In order to clarify the origin of osteoblasts implicated in new bone formation, KUSA/A1 cells alone and combined with Honeycomb carrier were implanted in Transgenic Green Fluorescent Protein mice (GFP) mice. The presence of GFP positive host cells with osteoblastic morphology as well as GFP negative cells, clearly of KUSA/A1 cells in origin were observed around the bony trabeculae. These results indicated that the new bone was not only produced by KUSA/A1 cells but also by host cells from the surrounding connective tissues. To our knowledge, this is the first study to describe that host cells play an important role in ectopic bone induced by implanted marrow stromal cells, which would need special attention in bone tissue engineering

Pain matrix shift in the rat brain following persistent colonic inflammation revealed by voxel-based statistical analysis.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), mainly comprising Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is characterized by chronic inflammation in the digestive tract. Approximately 60% of the patients experience abdominal pain during acute IBD episodes, which severely impairs their quality of life. Both peripheral and central mechanisms are thought to be involved in such abdominal pain in IBD. Although much attention has been paid to peripheral mechanisms of abdominal pain in IBD pathophysiology, the involvement of supraspinal mechanisms remains poorly understood. To address this issue, we investigated regional brain activity in response to colorectal distension (CRD) in normal and IBD model rats using voxel-based statistical analysis of 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) PET imaging. The rat IBD model was generated by colorectal administration of 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS), a chemical compound widely used to generate colitis. Tissue damage and inflammation were induced and dynamically changed with time after TNBS injection, while CRD-induced visceromotor response showed corresponding temporal changes. We found that characteristic brain activations were observed in response to visceral innocuous and noxious CRD and supraspinal nociception shared some physiological sensory pathway. Moreover, widespread brain regions were activated, and the functional coupling between the central medial thalamic nucleus (CMT) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was enhanced after noxious CRD in IBD model of rats. Increased brain activity in the anterior insular cortex (aINS) and ACC positively correlated with noxious CRD-induced pain severity in normal and IBD rats respectively. These findings suggest that the pain matrix was shifted following persistent colonic inflammation, and thalamocortical sensitization in the pathway from CMT to ACC might be a central mechanism of the visceral hyperalgesia in IBD pathophysiology