Day: March 13, 2023

Categories : Dentistry Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

Soft Gingival Tissues More Likely to Give Rise to Inflammation

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Dentist checking teeth
Image by Caroline LM on Unsplash

The gingiva, the tissue area surrounding teeth, lets healthy teeth nestle firmly into the gums thanks to the many gingival fibres that connect the tooth to the gingiva. The gingiva is home to fibroblasts, cells that contribute to the formation of connective tissue. Scientists report in the journal Scientific Reports that they have discovered that gingival stiffness influences the properties of gingival fibroblasts, which in turn affects whether inflammation is likely to occur and make gingival fibres difficult to form.

“We discovered that soft gingiva results in inflammation and hinders the development of gingival fibres,” says Associate Professor Masahiro Yamada from Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Dentistry.

It has long been known that individuals with thick or stiff gingiva are less susceptible to gingival recessions. This is where the gingiva begins to recede and expose a tooth’s root. Many factors can lead to gingival recession, such as gum disease, over-brushing, and chewing tobacco. But this is the first time that gingival stiffness has been attributed to biological reactions.

Although fibroblasts play an important role in the maintenance, repair and healing of the gingiva, they also produce various inflammatory and tissue-degrading biomolecules which degrade the gingival fibers. In addition, fibroblasts are associated with immune responses to pathogens.

Yamada, along with his colleague Professor Hiroshi Egusa, also from the Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Dentistry, created an artificial culture environment that simulated soft or hard gingiva and cultured human gingival fibroblasts on them. They discovered that hard gingiva-simulated stiffness activated an intracellular anti-inflammatory system in the gingival fibroblasts that prevented inflammation. Yet, soft gingiva-simulated stiffness suppressed the fibroblastic anti-inflammatory system. This increased the likelihood of inflammation and resulted in less collagen synthesis.

“Our research is the first to demonstrate the biological mechanisms at play in regard to a patient’s gingival properties,” adds Yamada. “The results are expected to accelerate the development of advanced biomaterials to control local inflammation or microdevices that simulate the microenvironment of inflammatory conditions.”

Source: Tohoku University

Categories : Respiratory DiseasesTags :

A Simple Device to Help COPD Sufferers Breathe Easier

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Tired woman after exercise
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects one in 10 adults, reducing quality of life and making physical activity challenging as they struggle to get enough air. Research around a new breathing device developed by pulmonologists at the University of Cincinnati offers promise for improving their lives. The research was published in the journal Respiratory Care.

The device, called PEP Buddy, was created by Muhammad Ahsan Zafar, MD, and Ralph Panos, MD. “Dr Panos and I both see patients with COPD, and it’s a huge population,” says Zafar. “Their life really changes when they have COPD. They were active individuals but now they’re debilitated and limited, so we wanted to come up with something easy that helps improve their life.”

For people with COPD, it takes longer to get inhaled air out of their lungs with each breath due to tighter air tubes. Therefore, when they breathe fast, like during physical activities, air is retained in the lungs. This air stacking or “dynamic hyperinflation” is the main reason for breathlessness and also leads to lower oxygen levels. As the breathing gets difficult during physical activity, people become less and less active and more isolated.

Panos and Zafar developed a hands-free device that is the size of a whistle. Zafar said he looked at positive-expiratory pressure (PEP) breathing devices on the market and they were handheld, big and bulky, so they tried to come up with something that is very simple, lightweight and easy to use. The device is designed to be worn around the neck with a lanyard for day-to-day use and inserted into the mouth when needed, during or after exertion.

In the study, they examined people with COPD who were short of breath and gave them two tasks. “We conducted a six-minute walk test with and without the device,” says Zafar. “They were given the device to take home and use in their daily routines. In two weeks, there was a follow-up to see how PEP Buddy use impacted their shortness of breath and quality-of-life scores.”

The study found 72% of the participants had a significant impact in reducing their shortness of breath and improving their quality of life. Among those who would drop their oxygen levels during walking, 36% of them did not drop oxygen levels when using PEP Buddy. This is the first mechanical device to show such an impact on oxygen levels in people with COPD.

Maja Flannery, a PEP Buddy user with chronic lung disease and airflow obstruction, says the device has changed her day-to-day living.

“I am so happy that I was lucky enough to be part of the study and able to use this great little device to breathe better,” Flannery says. “I use it when I get up in the morning. It helps with the air requirement when changing position from laying down to standing and exercises my lungs to get them more prepared for the day. I find it helpful in getting the trapped air out as I am active, so I can play longer points during tennis, and also recover between points more quickly. My friends at tennis laugh that it is my ‘magic whistle.'”

UC’s Zafar says the next step in this research is to conduct a long-term study to see the impact on the use of rescue inhalers, emergency department visits and long-term symptoms and functional capacity in people with COPD. PEP Buddy may also be a promising addition to pulmonary rehabilitation programs for faster improvement and sustaining better outcomes. They are also exploring other uses of PEP Buddy in health care.

“As a physician I feel gratified that we are providing something new that can actually improve people’s lives,” says Zafar. “That’s where my passion is. These people are really debilitated with not many tools in their hand to improve their symptoms right now. PEP Buddy will be one such tool.”

Source: University of Cincinnati

Categories : Skeletal SystemTags :

Bone Cells Growing on Biomaterials Like Curvatures the Best

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Doctor shows an X-ray of a foot
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels

TU Delft engineers have shown that the curvature of biomaterials inhibits or stimulates bone cells to make new tissue. Their findings are reported in Nature Communications, and their study of geometries could be an important step in research into repairing damaged tissues.

Living cells can perceive and respond to the geometry of their environment. “Cells sense and respond to the geometry of the surfaces they are exposed to. Depending on their curvature, surfaces can either encourage cells to create new tissue or prevent them from doing so,” says Amir Zadpoor, professor of Biomaterials and Tissue Biomechanics, supervisor of the study. “Stimulating curvatures made by a 3D printer are an easy and safe way to promote tissue growth. As compared to drugs, they are also much cheaper.”

The researchers grew bone cells in vitro surrounded by small moulds made from biomaterials with which the researchers have experience. Depending on the curvatures in the moulds, the cells tended to grow, divide, and form tissue to different extents.

Cells like a saddle shape

Although curved shapes seem to exist in endless variations, they always fall roughly into one of these three categories: a ball that has a convex curvature, a saddle that has a concave curvature, and a plate that is flat. One of the authors, assistant professor of Biomaterials Lidy Fratila-Apachitei: “Cells prefer a saddle shape. If they perceive a saddle shape nearby, growth is stimulated. The study also shows that cells prefer valleys over hills.”

Rather aligned than bent

First author Sebastien Callens did the experiments and analysis in the study. “Cells also have a skeleton, which consists of fibres that are under tension to different degrees. How tension builds up in those fibres strongly influences the behaviour of cells. Our study shows that cells collectively align their stress fibres with the curvatures they experience to minimise their need to bend. I could see that cells prefer to align than to bend.”

Budget of saddle curvature

You can’t have only saddle curves around cells. Just as the three angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, the sum of all curvatures must also equal some fundamental numbers. “You always have a limited budget of saddle shapes,” says Zadpoor. “If you use too much negative curvature somewhere, you must use positive curvatures somewhere else to keep the sum constant. You need to use your budget wisely to encourage maximum tissue regeneration.”

New biomaterials

The study provides guidance on the optimal geometry of biomaterials and implants to maximise tissue regeneration. The complex geometric designs required are made using high-precision 3D printing techniques to make the shapes so small that they are perceptible to cells. Callens: “We have now discovered new playing rules by which biomaterials can stimulate tissue growth. In follow-up research, we will try to apply those rules optimally.”

Source: Delft University of Technology

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

The Metabolic ‘Jump Start’ Behind C. Difficile’s Rapid Colonisation Ability

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C difficile. Source: CDC

A team of investigators has identified metabolic strategies used by Clostridioides difficile to rapidly colonise the gut, which involve a metabolic ‘jump start’. In addition, the findings identify methods to better prevent and treat the most common cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs). The team’s results are published in Nature Chemical Biology and have important implications for antibiotics and the study of metabolites.

“Investigating real-time metabolism in microorganisms that only grow in environments lacking oxygen had been considered impossible,” said co-corresponding author Lynn Bry, MD, PhD, director of the Massachusetts Host-Microbiome Center. “Here, we’ve shown it can be done to combat C. difficile infections – and with findings applicable to clinical medicine.”

“C. difficile is the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections and a leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. Understanding its metabolic mechanisms at a cellular level may be useful for preventing and treating infections,” said co-senior author Leo L. Cheng, PhD, an associate biophysicist in Pathology and Radiology at MGH and an associate professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.

The anaerobic C. difficile causes infections by releasing toxins that allow the pathogen to obtain nutrients from damaged gut tissues. Understanding how C. difficile metabolises nutrients while colonising the gut could inform new approaches to prevent and treat infections.

To complete their study, Bry and Cheng used a technology called high-resolution magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HRMAS NMR) to study real-time metabolism in living cells under anaerobic conditions. The team incorporated computational predictions to detect metabolic shifts in C. difficile as nutrient availability decreased, and then developed an approach to simultaneously track carbon and nitrogen flow through anaerobe metabolism. The researchers identified how C. difficile jump-starts its metabolism by fermenting amino acids before engaging pathways to ferment simple sugars such as glucose. They found that critical pathways converged on a metabolic integration point to produce the amino acid alanine to efficiently drive bacterial growth.

The study’s findings identified new targets for small molecule drugs to counter C. difficile colonisation and infection in the gut and provide a new approach to rapidly define microbial metabolism for other applications, including antibiotic development and the production of economically and therapeutically important metabolites.

Source: Mass General Brigham

Categories : General Interest NeurologyTags :

Inspiring, but not Therapeutic: Study Finally Silences The ‘Mozart Effect’

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Photo by Sergio Capuzzimati on Unsplash

Over the past fifty years, there have been remarkable claims about the effects of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music. Reports about alleged symptom-alleviating effects of listening to Mozart’s Sonata KV448 in epilepsy attracted a lot of public attention. However, the empirical validity of the underlying scientific evidence has remained unclear. Now, University of Vienna psychologists Sandra Oberleiter and Jakob Pietschnig show in a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports that there is no evidence for a positive effect of Mozart’s melody on epilepsy.

In the past, Mozart’s music has been associated with numerous ostensibly positive effects on humans, animals, and even microorganisms. For instance, listening to his sonata has been said to increase the intelligence of adults, children, or foetuses in the womb. Even cows were said to produce more milk, and bacteria in sewage treatment plants were said to work better when they heard Mozart’s composition.

However, most of these alleged effects have no scientific basis. The origin of these ideas can be traced back to the long-disproven observation of a temporary increase in spatial reasoning test performance among students after listening to the first movement allegro con spirito of Mozart’s sonata KV448 in D major.

More recently, the Mozart effect experienced a further variation: Some studies reported symptom relief in epilepsy patients after they had listened to KV448. However, a new comprehensive research synthesis by Sandra Oberleiter and Jakob Pietschnig from the University of Vienna, based on all available scientific literature on this topic, showed that there is no reliable evidence for such a beneficial effect of Mozart’s music on epilepsy. They found that this alleged Mozart effect can be mainly attributed to selective reporting, small sample sizes, and inadequate research practices in this corpus of literature. “Mozart’s music is beautiful, but unfortunately, we cannot expect relief from epilepsy symptoms from it” conclude the researchers.

Source: University of Vienna