Isolation and molecular characterization of brain microvascular endothelial cells from human brain tumors

Brain tumor formation and growth is accompanied by the proliferation and infiltration of blood capillaries. The phenotypes of endothelial cells that make up capillaries are known to differ not only in the tissues in which endothelial cells are located but also as a result of the microenvironment to which they are exposed. For this reason, primary cultures of brain endothelial cells were isolated from human brain tumors removed by surgery and compared with cells from normal tissue. The primary confluent monolayers that grew out of isolated capillary fragments consisted of closely associated, elongated, fusiform-shaped cells. But brain tumor-derived endothelial cells in culture exhibited significantly less expression of endothelial-specific Factor VIII-related antigen compared with cells isolated from normal tissue. Cultured cells that exhibited binding of Ulex europaeus lectin were shown to take up Dil-Ac-Ldl and formed continuous monolayers that were joined together by tight junctions. The cells also exhibited characteristics of the cells of the brain microvasculature in vitro as seen by the presence of large numbers of mitochondria and few pinocytotic vesicles and by the absence of Weibel-Palade bodies within the cells. The expression of vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, E-Selectin, and the tight junction associated protein ZO-1 but not intercellular adhesion molecule-1 was demonstrated by immunohistological staining or reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction methodologies. Comparative studies of these endothelial cells with endothelial cells from normal tissue will be useful for determining and understanding how the blood-brain barrier differs and functions in tumor and healthy tissues and may lead to strategies for brain tumor therapeutic approaches

Probabilistic Assessment of the Lifetime of Low-Earth-Orbit Spacecraft: Uncertainty Characterization

Orbital lifetime estimation is a problem of great timeliness and importance in astrodynamics. In view of the stochastic nature of the thermosphere and of the complexity of drag modeling, any deterministic assessment of orbital lifetime is likely to be bound to failure. This is why the present paper performs uncertainty quantification of satellite orbital lifetime estimation. Specifically, this paper focuses on the probabilistic characterization of the dominant sources of uncertainty inherent to low-altitude satellites. Uncertainties in the initial state of the satellite and in the atmospheric drag force, as well as uncertainties introduced by modeling limitations associated with atmospheric density models, are considered. Mathematical statistics methods, in conjunction with mechanical modeling considerations, are used to infer the probabilistic characterization of these uncertainties from experimental data and atmospheric density models. This characterization step facilitates the application of uncertainty propagation and sensitivity analysis methods, which in turn allows gaining insight into the impact that these uncertainties have on the orbital lifetime. The proposed developments are illustrated using one CubeSat of the QB50 constellation