Large numbers of branched muscle fibers occur in the freely grafted rat extensor digitorum longus muscle. The ratio of branched/non-branched muscle fibers in grafts is much higher in old (24 months) than in young (4 months) host rats. Crossage transplants show that the proportion of branched muscle fibers is related to the age of the grafted muscle and not to the age of the host. This is in con...

Calcification is a frequent cause of the clinical failure of bioprosthetic heart valves fabricated from glutaraldehyde pretreated bovine pericardium (GATBP). An investigation was made of the grafting of different molecular weight polyethylene glycol (PEG 600, 1500, 4000 and 6000) via glutaraldehyde (GA) linkages to bovine pericardium (BP) and of their stability and calcification. The process of...

In our study, we aimed to synthesize novel grafted hyaluronic acid with cationic biodegradable polymer, poly (N-vinyl imidazole) (PVI), through free radical polymerization using potassium persulfate as initiator. The effect of various grafting factors including initiator and monomer concentrations, reaction time and temperature was studied on the percentage of grafting parameters such as; graft...

Previously, split-thickness human skin grafted onto athymic mice has been shown to become markedly hyperpigmented, but the factor(s) responsible for this hyperpigmentation had not been isolated. The present study describes the isolation and characterization of a potent melanogenic inhibitor from grafted human skin. Extracts from grafted skin inhibited, in a concentration-dependent manner, tyros...

A major cause of implant failure in skeletal tissues is failure of osseointegration, often due to lack of adhesion of cells to the titanium (Ti) alloy interface. Since arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD)-containing peptides have been shown to regulate osteoblast adhesion, we tested the hypothesis that, bound to a Ti surface, these peptides would promote osteoblasts differentiation, while at th...

Neurospheres were obtained by culturing hippocampal cells from transgenic rat fetuses (E16) expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP). The neurosphere cells were injected into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) through the 4th ventricle of young rats (4 weeks old) that had been given a contusion injury at T8-9 of the spinal cord. The injected neural stem cells were transported through the CSF to th...

Grafting is a technique that may affect plant tolerance to iron chlorosis in plants cultivated for their fruit. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the tolerance of non-grafted quince seedlings and pear grafted onto quince plants cultivated in pots with alkaline soil. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse at the University of Cordoba, Spain, in pots (3 L) filled with a...

pH-responsive polymers have been synthesised by grafting l-valine (PV-75), l-leucine (PL-75) and l-phenylalanine (PP-75) onto the pendant carboxylic acid moieties of a pseudo-peptide, poly(l-lysine iso-phthalamide), at a stoichiometric degree of substitution of 75 mol%. The effect of such modification on the pH-, concentration- and time-dependent cell membrane-disruptive activity of the grafted...