Long non-coding RNA ENST00000434223 inhibits the progression of renal cancer through Wnt/hygro-catenin signaling pathway.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the function of long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) ENST00000434223 (Lnc ENST) in renal carcinoma, and to explore the potential molecular mechanism. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Quantitative Real-Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expressions of lncRNA ENST00000434223 and Wnt/ß-catenin pathway-related mRNAs in tissues and cells of renal cancer. Chi-square test was performed to figure out the relationship between lncRNA ENST00000434223 and clinic-pathologic features of renal cancer patients. Besides, si-NC, si-ENST00000434223, pcDNA-NC and pcDNA-ENST00000434223 were transfected into renal cancer cells. The proliferative ability, metastasis and invasiveness of cells were detected using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and transwell assay, respectively. Lastly, the activation of the Wnt/hygro-catenin signal transduction pathway was evaluated by TOP/FOP Wnt Luciferase reporter assay and Western blot. RESULTS: The expressions of Wnt2b and ß-catenin were significantly increased in renal carcinoma, while E-cadherin was markedly down-regulated. Lowly expressed ENST00000434223 was involved in the poor prognosis of patients with renal cancer. In addition, down-regulating ENST00000434223 could enhance the viability, metastasis and invasiveness of renal cancer cells. However, overexpressing ENST00000434223 remarkably weakened the above cell functions. At the same time, interference or overexpression of ENST00000434223 could affect the expression level of proteins related to the Wnt/ß-catenin signal pathway. CONCLUSIONS: LncRNA ENST00000434223 inhibits the progression of renal cancer through the Wnt/shell-catenin signal pathway.

In vitro evaluation of fibrin mat and Tegaderm wound dressing for the delivery of keratinocytes--implications of their use to treat burns.

The effectiveness of fibrin mat and Tegaderm delivery systems to maintain clonogenic keratinocytes in culture were evaluated using in vitro methods. A fibrin mat was found to provide a culture environment that is conducive for the proliferation of keratinocytes and supporting their ability to form colonies of good growth potential in vitro. This confirms that the fibrin mat is a good delivery system for cultured epithelial autograft (CEA). In our unit, fibrin-CEA is limited only for the treatment of severe burns due to the high cost of fibrin glue. However, this substrate is able to maintain the regenerative properties of the CEA which is crucial for the treatment of extensive and full thickness burns. Tegaderm, a cost-effective polyurethane wound dressing is able to support keratinocyte cell growth but at a slower rate and with fewer colonies formed compared to the fibrin system. This suggests that Tegaderm can be an alternative approach of delivering autologous cells, limited to treat chronic wounds and less extensive burns. The use of simple and relatively inexpensive bench techniques can potentially serve as a quality control to check for keratinocytes cultured and delivered to every patient in the clinical setting.

A review: the location, molecular characterisation and multipotency of hair follicle epidermal stem cells.

INTRODUCTION: Recent work has focused on the hair follicle as the main repository of multipotent stem cells in skin, which is a neat model to study the mechanisms regulating the proliferation, migration and final fate of adult stem cells. This review examines the available literature for its location, molecular markers and multipotency. METHODS: Peer-reviewed journals and monographs on the subject were covered. RESULTS: With the application of stem cell-labelling techniques and clonogenicity assay, it is clear that most of the hair follicle stem cells are located at the bulge region, but the base of the hair follicle does contain some clonogenic cells; whether they are stem cells is still unknown. Extensive works have been done in identifying hair follicle stem cells. The potential markers for hair follicle stem cells include: b1-integrin, keratin 19, a6- integrin, CD71, p63, and CD34. Most of these markers are expressed in high levels in hair follicle stem cells, but there is still difficulty in distinguishing hair follicle stem cells from their transitamplifying progeny, and the sorted hair follicle stem cells with these markers are far from pure. As hair follicle stem cells might have been activated after leaving the stem cell niche, the markers for cells in vitro might not be identical to those in vivo. Using double-labelling techniques with BrdU and 3H-Thymidine, and the creation of novel chimera transgenic mice, it was proved that hair follicle stem cells can repopulate wound epidermis, forming epidermis, hair follicles and sebaceous glands, but it contributes little to the epidermis in physiological condition, except the hair follicle. CONCLUSIONS: Slow cycling, label-retaining cells exist at the bulge of the hair follicle, with high proliferative potential and clonogenicity. The putative bulge stem cells can contribute to the epidermis, outer root sheath, inner root sheath, hair shaft and sebaceous gland. However, they still lack certain markers to distinguish bulge stem cells from their progeny, and much work needs to focus on the interrelations between bulge cells and interfollicular keratinocyte stem cells, the relations between bulge cells and dermal papilla mesenchyme cells, and the mechanism of hair growth.