Reducing Tumour Hypoxia via Oral Administration of Oxygen Nanobubbles

Hypoxia has been shown to be a key factor inhibiting the successful treatment of solid tumours. Existing strategies for reducing hypoxia, however, have shown limited efficacy and/or adverse side effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential for reducing tumour hypoxia using an orally delivered suspension of surfactant-stabilised oxygen nanobubbles. Experiments were carried out in a mouse xenograft tumour model for human pancreatic cancer (BxPc-3 cells in male SCID mice). A single dose of 100 μL of oxygen saturated water, oxygen nanobubbles or argon nanobubbles was administered via gavage. Animals were sacrificed 30 minutes post-treatment (3 per group) and expression of hypoxia-inducible-factor-1α (HIF1α) protein measured by real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis of the excised tumour tissue. Neither the oxygen saturated water nor argon nanobubbles produced a statistically significant change in HIF1α expression at the transcriptional level. In contrast, a reduction of 75% and 25% in the transcriptional and translational expression of HIF1α respectively (p<0.001) was found for the animals receiving the oxygen nanobubbles. This magnitude of reduction has been shown in previous studies to be commensurate with an improvement in outcome with both radiation and drug-based treatments. In addition, there was a significant reduction in the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in this group and corresponding increase in the expression of arrest-defective protein 1 homolog A (ARD1A)

Can we fabricate that fibre?

This paper reviews the development of an efficient mathematical model for the drawing of optical fibres using extensional flow theory which is applicable for fibres of arbitrary geometry. The model is comprised of a 1D axial stretching problem describing the change in area of the cross-section from preform to fibre coupled with a 2D cross-plane problem describing the evolution of a cross-section. The solution of the axial stretching problem may be written in an exact form while the cross-plane problem must, in general, be solved numerically. The model may be used to solve forward and inverse problems and gives results that compare well with experiments.Yvonne M. Stokes, Darren G. Crowdy, Heike Ebendorff-Heidepriem, Peter Buchak and Michael J. Che

The use of electrospinning technique on osteochondral tissue engineering

Electrospinning, an electrostatic fiber fabrication technique, has attracted significant interest in recent years due to its versatility and ability to produce highly tunable nanofibrous meshes. These nanofibrous meshes have been investigated as promising tissue engineering scaffolds since they mimic the scale and morphology of the native extracellular matrix. The sub-micron diameter of fibers produced by this process presents various advantages like the high surface area to volume ratio, tunable porosity, and the ability to manipulate the nanofiber composition in order to get desired properties and functionality. Electrospun fibers can be oriented or arranged randomly, giving control over both mechanical properties and the biological response to the fibrous scaffold. Moreover, bioactive molecules can be integrated with the electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds in order to improve the cellular response. This chapter presents an overview of the developments on electrospun polymer nanofibers including processing, structure, and their applications in the field of osteochondral tissue engineering.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio