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Chronic low back pain and dyskinesia caused by intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) are seriously aggravated and become more prevalent with age. Current clinical treatments do not restore the biological structure and inherent function of the disc. The emergence of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine has provided new insights into the treatment of IDD. We synthesized biocompatible layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanoparticles and optimized their ion elemental compositions to promote chondrogenic differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs). The chondrogenic differentiation of LDH-treated MSCs was validated using Alcian blue staining, qPCR, and immunofluorescence analyses. LDH-pretreated hUC-MSCs were differentiated prior to transplantation into the degenerative site of a needle puncture IDD rat model. Repair and regeneration evaluated using X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging, and tissue immunostaining 4-12 weeks after transplantation showed recovery of the disc space height and integrated tissue structure. Transcriptome sequencing revealed significant regulatory roles of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and integrin receptors of focal adhesion signaling pathway in enhancing chondrogenic differentiation and thus prompting tissue regeneration. The construction of ion-specific LDH nanomaterials for intervertebral disc regeneration through the focal adhesion signaling pathway provides theoretical basis for clinical transformation in IDD treatment.
Learn More >Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) is a measurement of the descending pain pathways that inhibit or facilitate afferent noxious stimuli. The reliability of CPM in older individuals with or without chronic […]
Learn More >Non-cephalgic symptoms including orthostatic intolerance, fatigue, and cognitive impairment, are common in patients with chronic headache disorders and may result from alterations in the autonomic nervous system. However, little is […]
Learn More >Although fibromyalgia (FM) is considered a central sensitization syndrome, studies investigating peripheral nerves in this condition are not available. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the sonographic […]
Learn More >The versatility of somatosensation arises from heterogenous human dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. The critical information to decipher their functions, i.e., the soma transcriptome, is lacking due to technical difficulties. […]
Learn More >How mechanical allodynia following nerve injury is encoded in patterns of neural activity in the spinal cord dorsal horn (DH) is not known. We addressed this using the spared nerve […]
Learn More >Distal sensory polyneuropathy (DSP) is characterised by length-dependent, sensory-predominant symptoms and signs, including potentially disabling symmetric chronic pain, tingling and poor balance. Some patients also have or develop dysautonomia or […]
Learn More >Nociceptor sensory neurons play a key role in eliciting pain. An active crosstalk between nociceptor neurons and the vascular system at the molecular and cellular level is required to sense […]
Learn More >It is known that interactions between nociceptors and dendritic cells (DCs) can modulate immune responses in barrier tissues. However, our understanding of the underlying communication frameworks remains rudimentary. Here, we […]
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Is the right way to go in between? : Rimegepant as needed provides preventive benefit. A comment on: monthly migraine days, tablet utilization, and quality of life associated with rimegepant-post hoc results from an open label safety study (BHV3000-201).
In the study by Johnston et al., gepants were meant to be taken to treat emergent migraine. It is tempting to speculate what the effect would be if patients were […]
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