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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Improving Cartilage Phenotype From Differentiated Pericytes In Tunable Peptide Hydrogels, Enateri V. Alakpa, Vineetha Jayawarna, Karl E. V. Burgess, Christopher C. West, Bruno Péault, Rein V. Ulijn, Matthew J. Dalby
Improving Cartilage Phenotype From Differentiated Pericytes In Tunable Peptide Hydrogels, Enateri V. Alakpa, Vineetha Jayawarna, Karl E. V. Burgess, Christopher C. West, Bruno Péault, Rein V. Ulijn, Matthew J. Dalby
Advanced Science Research Center
Differentiation of stem cells to chondrocytes in vitro usually results in a heterogeneous phenotype. This is evident in the often detected over expression of type X collagen which, in hyaline cartilage structure is not characteristic of the mid-zone but of the deep-zone ossifying tissue. Methods to better match cartilage developed in vitro to characteristic in vivo features are therefore highly desirable in regenerative medicine. This study compares phenotype characteristics between pericytes, obtained from human adipose tissue, differentiated using diphenylalanine/serine (F2/S) peptide hydrogels with the more widely used chemical induced method for chondrogenesis. Significantly higher levels of type II collagen were …
Conserved Amino Acid Networks Modulate Discrete Functional Properties In An Enzyme Superfamily, Chitra Narayanan, Donald Gagne, Kimberly A. Reynolds, Nicolas Doucet
Conserved Amino Acid Networks Modulate Discrete Functional Properties In An Enzyme Superfamily, Chitra Narayanan, Donald Gagne, Kimberly A. Reynolds, Nicolas Doucet
Advanced Science Research Center
In this work, we applied the sequence-based statistical coupling analysis approach to characterize conserved amino acid networks important for biochemical function in the pancreatic-type ribonuclease (ptRNase) superfamily. This superfamily-wide analysis indicates a decomposition of the RNase tertiary structure into spatially distributed yet physically connected networks of co-evolving amino acids, termed sectors. Comparison of this statistics-based description with new NMR experiments data shows that discrete amino acid networks, termed sectors, control the tuning of distinct functional properties in different enzyme homologs. Further, experimental characterization of evolutionarily distant sequences reveals that sequence variation at sector positions can distinguish homologs with a conserved …