Vascular calcification increasingly afflicts our aging and dysmetabolic population. Once considered a passive process, it has emerged as an actively regulated form of calcified tissue metabolism, resembling the mineralization of endochondral and membranous bone. Executive cell types familiar to bone biologists, osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and osteoclasts, are seen in calcifying macrovascular spe...

This thesis presents the development of entropy-elastic gelatin based networks in the form of films or scaffolds. The materials have good prospects for biomedical applications, especially in the context of bone regeneration. Entropy-elastic gelatin based hydrogel films with varying crosslinking densities were prepared with tailored mechanical properties. Gelatin was covalently crosslinked in wa...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this paper was to evaluate the repair of onlay autogenous bone grafts covered or not covered by an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (e-PTFE) membrane using immunohistochemistry in rats with induced estrogen deficiency. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eighty female rats were randomly divided into two groups: ovariectomized (OVX) and with a simulation of the surgical procedure (SHAM)....

The fate of hypertrophic chondrocytes during endochondral ossification remains controversial. It has long been thought that the calcified cartilage is invaded by blood vessels and that new bone is deposited on the surface of the eroded cartilage by newly arrived cells. The present study was designed to determine whether hypertrophic chondrocytes were destined to die or could survive to particip...

Transforming growth factor-beta(3) (TGF-beta(3)), a multi-functional growth modulator of embryonic development, tissue repair and morphogenesis, immunoregulation, fibrosis, angiogenesis and carcinogenesis, is the third mammalian isoform of the TGF-beta subfamily of proteins. The pleiotropism of the signalling proteins of the TGF-beta superfamily, including the TGF-beta proteins per se, are high...

Despite its natural healing potential, bone is unable to regenerate sufficient tissue within critical-sized defects, resulting in a non-union of bone ends. As a consequence, interventions are required to replace missing, damaged or diseased bone. Bone grafts have been widely employed for the repair of such critical-sized defects. However, the well-documented drawbacks associated with autografts...

The extracellular matrix glycoprotein, tenascin, is associated in vivo with mesenchyme undergoing osteogenesis and chondrogenesis, but is absent from mature bone and cartilage matrix. The expression of tenascin by osteoblastic cells in vitro has been investigated by immunoblotting and immunocytochemistry. Tenascin was secreted into the medium and deposited in the matrix by human and rat osteobl...