(C) 2012 Osteoarthritis Research Society International. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Objective: Strategies to improve cartilage repair tissue quality after bone marrow cell-based procedures may reduce later development of osteoarthritis. Doxycycline is inexpensive, well-tolerated, and has been shown to reduce matrix-metalloproteinases (MMPs) and osteoarthritis progression. This study tests the hypotheses that doxycycline reduces MMP, enhances chondrogenesis of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal
stern cells (hMSC), and improves in vivo cartilage repair.
Design: Ninety hMSC pellets were cultured in chondrogenic media with either 0-, 1- or 2-p,mu/mL doxycycline. Pellets were evaluated with stereomicroscopy, proteoglycan assay, qRT-PCR, and histology. Osteochondral defects (0CD5) were created in the trochlear grooves of 24-Sprague-Dawley rats treated with/without oral doxycycline. Rats were sacrificed at 12-weeks and VX-661 datasheet repair tissues were examined grossly and histologically.
Results: hMSC pellets with 1-mu g/mL (P = 0.014) and 2-1.1 mu/mL (P = 0.002) doxycycline had larger areas than pellets without doxycycline. hMSC pellets with 2-1.mu g/mL doxycycline showed reduced mmp-13 mRNA (P = 0.010) and protein at 21-days. Proteoglycan, DNA contents, PCI-34051 mw and mRNA expressions of chondrogenic genes
were similar (P > 0.05). For the in vivo study, while the histological scores Z-VAD-FMK ic50 were similar between the two groups (P = 0.116), the gross scores of the OCD repair tissues in doxycycline-treated rats
were higher at 12,weeks (P = 0.017), reflective of improved repair quality. The doxycycline-treated repairs also showed lower MMP-13 protein (P = 0.029).
Conclusions: This study shows that doxycycline improves hMSC chondrogenesis and decreases MMP-13 in pellet cultures and within rat OCDs. Doxycycline exerted no negative effect on multiple measures of chondrogenesis and cartilage repair. These data support potential use of doxycycline to improve cartilage repair to delay the onset of osteoarthritis. (C) 2012 Osteoarthritis Research Society International. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Different tests can be used to provide valuable information about the function of the peritoneal membrane. The data obtained can be useful for tailoring dialysis adequacy, for the analysis of clinical problems such as ultrafiltration failure or to predict the development of more severe peritoneal membrane derangement. The most widely used peritoneal function test is the peritoneal equilibration test (PET), developed and described by Twardowski in 1987. PET is performed using a 2.27% glucose solution, and it lasts 4 hours. It measures peritoneal solute transport and ultrafiltration (UF), and it gives the possibility to categorize patients (high, high-average, low-average and low transporters). However, a PET with 3.