Temporary Storage of the Human Nasal Tissue and Cell Sheet for Wound Repair.

Temporary storage of nasal tissues and nasal cell sheets, which entails transportation between hospitals and cell culture facilities, is an important issue in regenerative medicine. Herein, we investigated the preservation of chilled and frozen nasal tissues and expiry dates of ready-to-use nasal cell sheets. Although the cell number in preserved tissues was lower than that in fresh tissue, nasal cell sheets could be fabricated from tissues that had been refrigerated for 5 days and frozen-thawed over 5 days. Moreover, the nasal mucosal cell sheets were preserved in a non-hazardous buffer. The cell number, viability, and structure were not maintained in saline containing E-cadherin for 2 days; however, these were maintained in Hank's balanced salt solution for 2 days, but not for 5 days. To assess the proliferation capacity of cells in the stored cell sheets, we performed cell sheet grafting assays in vitro. Cell sheets stored in Hank's balanced salt solution for 2 days adhered to collagen gel and expanded normally. Our results show that nasal tissues can be stored temporarily in refrigerators or deep freezers, and Hank's balanced salt solution can be used for preservation of ready-to-use cell sheets for a few days.

Generation of a large-scale vascular bed for the in vitro creation of three-dimensional cardiac tissue.

INTRODUCTION: The definitive treatment for severe heart failure is transplantation. However, only a small number of heart transplants are performed each year due to donor shortages. Therefore, novel treatment approaches based on artificial organs or regenerative therapy are being developed as alternatives. We have developed a technology known as cell sheet-based tissue engineering that enables the fabrication of functional three-dimensional (3D) tissue. Here, we report a new technique for engineering human cardiac tissue with perfusable blood vessels. Our method involved the layering of cardiac cell sheets derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) on a vascular bed derived from porcine small intestinal tissue. METHODS: For the vascular bed, a segment of porcine small intestine was harvested together with a branch of the superior mesenteric artery and a branch of the superior mesenteric vein. The small intestinal tissue was incised longitudinally, and the mucosa was resected. Human cardiomyocytes derived from hiPSCs were co-cultured with endothelial cells and fibroblasts on a temperature-responsive dish and harvested as a cardiac cell sheet. A triple-layer of cardiac cell sheets was placed onto the vascular bed, and the resulting construct was subjected to perfusion culture in a bioreactor system. RESULTS: The cardiac tissue on the vascular bed pulsated spontaneously and synchronously after one day of perfusion culture. Electrophysiological recordings revealed regular action potentials and a beating rate of 105 ± 13/min (n = 8). Furthermore, immunostaining experiments detected partial connection of the blood vessels between the vascular bed and cardiac cell sheets. CONCLUSIONS: We succeeded in engineering spontaneously beating 3D cardiac tissue in vitro using human cardiac cell sheets and a vascular bed derived from porcine small intestine. Further development of this method might allow the fabrication of functional cardiac tissue that could be used in the treatment of severe heart failure.

Three-dimensional functional human myocardial tissues fabricated from induced pluripotent stem cells.

The most radical treatment currently available for severe heart failure is heart transplantation; however, the number of donor hearts is limited. A better approach is to make human cardiac tissues. We developed an original cell sheet-based tissue-engineering technology to fabricate human cardiac tissue by layering myocardial cell sheets. Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells were differentiated into cardiomyocytes to fabricate cardiomyocyte sheets. Initially, three-layer human iPS cardiomyocyte (hiPSCM) sheets were transplanted on subcutaneous tissues of nude rats. Next, to fabricate thicker tissue, three-layer sheets were transplanted on one day, then additional three-layer sheets were transplanted onto them the following day, after the first sheets were vascularized. On day 3, the final three-layer sheets were again transplanted, creating a nine-layer graft (multi-step transplantation procedure). In the last step, six-layer sheets were transplanted on fat tissues of the inguinal portion, which were subsequently resected together with the femoral arteries and veins to make transplantable grafts with connectable vessels. They were then transplanted ectopically to the neck portion of other rats by anastomosing vessels with the host's jugular arteries and veins. Transplanted three-layer hiPSCMs were beating and, histologically, showed a cardiac muscle-like structure with vascular systems. Moreover, transplanted hiPSCMs proliferated and matured in vivo. Significantly thicker tissues were fabricated by a multi-step transplantation procedure. The ectopically transplanted graft survived and continued to beat. We succeeded in fabricating functional human cardiac tissue with cell sheet technology. Transplanting this cardiac tissue may become a new treatment option for severe heart failure. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In vivo vascularization of cell sheets provided better long-term tissue survival than injection of cell suspension.

Cell sheets have shown a remarkable ability for repairing damaged myocardium in clinical and preclinical studies. Although they demonstrate a high degree of viability as engrafted cells in vivo, the reason behind their survivability is unclear. In this study, the survival and vascularization of rat cardiac cell sheets transplanted in the subcutaneous tissue of athymic rats were investigated temporally. The cell sheets showed significantly higher survival than cell suspensions for up to 12 months, using an in vivo bioluminescence imaging system to detect luciferase-positive transplanted cells. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assay also showed a smaller number of apoptotic cells in the cell sheets than in the cell suspensions at 1 day. Rapid vascular formation and maturation were observed inside the cell sheets using an in vivo imaging system. Leaky vessels appeared at 6 h, red blood cells flowing through functional vessels appeared at 12 h, and morphologically matured vessels appeared at 7 days. In addition, immunostaining of cell sheets with nerve/glial antigen-2 (NG2) showed that vessel maturity increased over time. Interestingly, these results correlated with the dynamics of cell sheet mRNA expression. Genes related to endothelial cells (ECs) proliferation, migration and vessel sprouting were highly expressed within 1 day, and genes related to pericyte recruitment and vessel maturation were highly expressed at 3 days or later. This suggested that the cell sheets could secrete appropriate angiogenic factors in a timely way after transplantation, and this ability might be a key reason for their high survival. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In vitro fabrication of functional three-dimensional tissues with perfusable blood vessels.

In vitro fabrication of functional vascularized three-dimensional tissues has been a long-standing objective in the field of tissue engineering. Here we report a technique to engineer cardiac tissues with perfusable blood vessels in vitro. Using resected tissue with a connectable artery and vein as a vascular bed, we overlay triple-layer cardiac cell sheets produced from coculture with endothelial cells, and support the tissue construct with media perfused in a bioreactor. We show that endothelial cells connect to capillaries in the vascular bed and form tubular lumens, creating in vitro perfusable blood vessels in the cardiac cell sheets. Thicker engineered tissues can be produced in vitro by overlaying additional triple-layer cell sheets. The vascularized cardiac tissues beat and can be transplanted with blood vessel anastomoses. This technique may create new opportunities for in vitro tissue engineering and has potential therapeutic applications.

hDbr1 is a nucleocytoplasmic shuttling protein with a protein phosphatase-like motif essential for debranching activity.

In higher eukaryotes most genes contain multiple introns. Introns are excised from pre-mRNAs by splicing and eventually degraded in the nucleus. It is likely that rapid intron turnover in the nucleus is important in higher eukaryotes, but this pathway is poorly understood. In order to gain insights into this pathway, we analyzed the human lariat RNA debranching enzyme1 (hDbr1) protein that catalyzes debranching of lariat-intron RNAs. Transfection experiments demonstrate that hDbr1 is localized in a nucleoplasm of HeLa cells through a bipartite type nuclear localization signal near carboxyl-terminus. The conserved GNHE motif, originally identified in protein phosphatase protein family, is critical for hDbr1 to dissolve lariat structure in vitro. Furthermore, heterokaryon experiments show that hDbr1 is a nucleocytoplasmic shuttling protein, suggesting novel role(s) of hDbr1 in the cytoplasm.

Cardiac cell sheet transplantation improves damaged heart function via superior cell survival in comparison with dissociated cell injection.

Regenerative therapies have currently emerged as one of the most promising treatments for repair of the damaged heart. Recently, numerous researchers reported that isolated cell injection treatments can improve heart function in myocardial infarction models. However, significant cell loss due to primary hypoxia or cell wash-out and difficulty to control the location of the grafted cells remains problem. As an attempt to overcome these limitations, we have proposed cell sheet-based tissue engineering, which involves stacking confluently cultured cells (two-dimensional), cell sheets, to construct three-dimensional cell-dense tissues. Cell sheet transplantation has been able to recover damaged heart function. However, no detailed analysis for transplanted cell survival has been previously performed. The present study compared the survival of cardiac cell sheet transplantation to direct cell injection in a rat myocardial infarction model. Luciferase-expressing neonatal rat cardiac cells were harvested as cell sheets from temperature-responsive culture dishes. The transplantation of cell sheets was compared to the direct injection of isolated cells dissociated with trypsin-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. These grafts were transplanted to infarcted rat hearts and cardiac function was assessed by echocardiography at 2 and 4 weeks after transplantation. In vivo bioluminescence and histological analyses were performed to examine cell survival. Cell sheet transplantation consistently yielded greater cell survival than cell injection. Immunohistochemistry revealed that cardiac cell sheets existed over the infarcted area as an intact layer. In contrast, the injected cells were scattered with relatively few cardiomyocytes in the infarcted areas. Four weeks after transplantation, cardiac function was also significantly improved in the cell sheet transplantation group compared with the cell injection. Twenty-four hours after cell grafting, significantly greater numbers of mature capillaries were also observed in the cardiac cell sheet transplantation. Additionally, the numbers of apoptotic cells with deterioration of integrin-mediated attachment were significantly lower after cardiac cell sheet transplantation. In accordance with increased cell survival, cardiac function was significantly improved after cardiac cell sheet transplantation in comparison to cell injection. Cell sheet transplantation can repair damaged hearts through improved cell survival and should become a promising therapy in cardiovascular regenerative medicine.

Specific Y14 domains mediate its nucleo-cytoplasmic shuttling and association with spliced mRNA.

Pre-mRNA splicing deposits multi-protein complexes, termed exon junction complexes (EJCs), on mRNAs near exon-exon junctions. The core of EJC consists of four proteins, eIF4AIII, MLN51, Y14 and Magoh. Y14 is a nuclear protein that can shuttle between the nucleus and the cytoplasm, and binds specifically to Magoh. Here we delineate a Y14 nuclear localization signal that also confers its nuclear export, which we name YNS. We further identified a 12-amino-acid peptide near Y14's carboxyl terminus that is required for its association with spliced mRNAs, as well as for Magoh binding. Furthermore, the Y14 mutants, which are deficient in binding to Magoh, could still be localized to the nucleus, suggesting the existence of both the nuclear import pathway and function for Y14 unaccompanied by Magoh.