Background: Dendritic cells (DC) induce tumor or pathogen-specific T cell responses in humans. Several laboratories have developed culture systems, including maturation factors for human DC from peripheral blood monocytes. We comprehensively compared standard maturation stimulus, an autologous monocyte-conditioned medium (MCM), with heparin for their ability to promote uniformly mature DC that ...

background: linoleic acid (la) is a polyunsaturated fatty acid present in high concentrations in follicular fluid, when added to maturation culture media, it affects oocyte competence.objective: in the present study, we investigated effect of linoleic acid supplementation on in vitro maturation, embryo development and apoptotic related gene expression in ovinematerials and methods: the experime...

PURPOSE Balloon-assisted maturation (BAM) is emerging as a salvage management for arteriovenous fistula maturation failure (AVF MF). However, BAM is a relatively new, yet controversial technique for AVF maturation. Therefore, we evaluated the effectiveness of BAM for AVF MF. METHODS Between January 2012 and December 2014, 249 AVFs were created. The total MF rate was 24.8%. But, only 110 AVFs ...

To clarify the maturation process of the pituitary-thyroid axis during the perinatal period, thyrotropin (TSH) response to thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH) and serum thyroid hormone levels were examined in 26 healthy infants of 30 to 40 weeks gestation. A TRH stimulation test was performed on 10 to 20 postnatal days. Basal concentrations of serum thyroxine (T4), free thyroxine (free T4) and ...

Maturation of the visual cortex is influenced by visual experience during an early postnatal period. The factors that regulate such a critical period remain unclear. We examined the maturation and plasticity of the visual cortex in transgenic mice in which the postnatal rise of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was accelerated. In these mice, the maturation of GABAergic innervation and i...

Background: This study examined the effect of including one of two growth factors (100 ng/ml IGF-1 or 20 ng/ ml EGF) in combination with one of two antioxidants (50 μM cysteamine or 50 μM beta-mercaptoethanol) in invitro maturation of buffalo oocytes, followed by fertilization and subsequent development of embryos. Materials and Methods: The oocytes were recovered by in vivo ovum pick-up techni...

In order to achieve developmental competence, porcine oocytes must undergo both nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation. Nuclear maturation results from breakdown of the germinal vesicle (GV) and progression of meiosis to metaphase II (MII). Cytoplasmic maturation is the accumulation, within the oocyte’s cytoplasm, of products necessary for fertilization, cleavage and development, prior to activatio...

dendritic cells (dcs) induce pathogen-specific t cell responses. we comprehensively studied the effects of addition of maturation stimulus, fibroblasts (fibroblast conditioned medium), pha activated t cells (t cell conditioned medium), and mixture of fibroblast & pha activated t cells (fcm-tccm) conditioned media on maturation of dcs. monocytes were cultured with gm-csf and il-4 for five da...