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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Human Ipsc Tissue-Engineered Cartilage For Disease Modeling Of Skeletal Dysplasia-Causing Trpv4 Mutations, Amanda R. Dicks
Human Ipsc Tissue-Engineered Cartilage For Disease Modeling Of Skeletal Dysplasia-Causing Trpv4 Mutations, Amanda R. Dicks
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Cartilage is essential to joint development and function. However, there is a variety of cartilage diseases, ranging from developmental (e.g., skeletal dysplasias) to degenerative (e.g., arthritis), in which treatments and therapeutics are lacking. For example, specific point mutations in the ion channel transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) prevent proper joint development, leading to mild brachyolmia and severe, neonatally lethal metatropic dysplasia. Tissue-engineered cartilage offers an opportunity to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of these cartilage diseases for the development of treatments. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are an improved cell source option for cartilage tissue engineering given their minimal …
Novel Mechanisms Underlying Warm-Up And Percussion Myotonia In Myotonia Congenita, Kevin Richard Nnovak
Novel Mechanisms Underlying Warm-Up And Percussion Myotonia In Myotonia Congenita, Kevin Richard Nnovak
Browse all Theses and Dissertations
Patients with myotonia congenita have muscle hyperexcitability due to loss-of-function mutations in the ClC-1 chloride channel in skeletal muscle, which causes spontaneous firing of muscle action potentials (myotonia), producing muscle stiffness. Triggers for myotonia can occur voluntarily at the neuromuscular junction or involuntarily by striking the muscle with a reflex hammer (percussion myotonia). In patients, muscle stiffness lessens with exercise, a change known as the warm-up phenomenon. Our goal was to identify the mechanism underlying warm-up and percussion myotonia and to use this information to guide development of novel therapies. To determine these underlying mechanisms, we used a drug to …
Theoretical Investigation Of Intra- And Inter-Cellular Spatiotemporal Calcium Patterns In Microcirculation, Jaimit B. Parikh
Theoretical Investigation Of Intra- And Inter-Cellular Spatiotemporal Calcium Patterns In Microcirculation, Jaimit B. Parikh
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Microcirculatory vessels are lined by endothelial cells (ECs) which are surrounded by a single or multiple layer of smooth muscle cells (SMCs). Spontaneous and agonist induced spatiotemporal calcium (Ca2+) events are generated in ECs and SMCs, and regulated by complex bi-directional signaling between the two layers which ultimately determines the vessel tone. The contractile state of microcirculatory vessels is an important factor in the determination of vascular resistance, blood flow and blood pressure. This dissertation presents theoretical insights into some of the important and currently unresolved phenomena in microvascular tone regulation. Compartmental and continuum models of isolated EC …