Human adipose stromal cells provide an excellent model for studying a variety of metabolic processes in an in vitro system These are normal cells derived from subcutaneous or omental adipose tissue. Under specific culture condition, they will differentiate without replication into c ...
The human epidermis consists of a heterogeneous population of cells including keratinocytes in various stages of differentiation, Merkel cells, melanocytes, and Langerhans’ cells (LC). The latter account for only around l–3% of the epidermal population, but they represent the major a ...
Cell cultures are widely used in both medical and biotechnical research centers, industries, and also as diagnostic tools in a clinical setting It has been reported that up to 50% of cell cultures are contaminated with mycoplasmas (1). Mycoplasma contamination may alter cellular growth cha ...
The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a layer of multipotential cells of neural ectoderm origin lying between Bruch’s membrane and the neural retina. The RPE subserves several essential ocular functions, including phagocytosis of shed photoreceptor outer segments, maintenan ...
The outer root sheath (ORS) of hair follicles is a multilayered tissue made up predominantly by undifferentiated keratinocytes (it1, it2) Although the functions of the ORS cells for hair growth are not established, it is known that the ORS cells can contribute to the regeneration of the epidermi ...
The conjunctiva is the mucous membrane of the eye. It is a delicate transparent epithelium with its own stroma overlying the tough white sclera, which forms the ball of the eye. Only at the circular limbus, where the sclera meets the transparent cornea, and at the eyelids, is the conjunctiva firmly attac ...
Keratocytes, or cornea1 fibroblasts, are the primary cell type of the cornea1 stroma. They lie between and are oriented parallel to the orthogonally arranged collagen lamellae, forming a continuous interconnecting cellular network that has been hypothesized to transmit informat ...
Long-term organ culture of human corneas offers a tool for conducting a variety of biochemical, histological, and wound-healing studies on human tissue in vitro. A requirement of any organ culture system is that cell differentiation and structural integrity of the tissue be maintained or e ...
The human placenta is a unique and still very poorly understood organ During gestation, it is responsible for performing most synthetic and transport functions that are necessary to ensure the normal growth and development of the fetus in utero. Subsequently, at birth it is discarded. Current ...
The difficulty in obtaining a preparation of pure trophoblast cells for culture can be appreciated by understanding the structure of the placenta. The outer surface of the chorionic villi is covered by the syncytiotrophoblast, underlying which is a single cell layer of cytotrophoblast c ...
Cell cultures are indispensable to the study of human pituitary adenomas Nevertheless, in vitro studies of human pituitary adenomas have been hindered by the small amount of tissue available and by difficulties in establishing monolayer cultures using standard culture techniques ...
The renal medullary interstitial cell (RMIC) is a unique lipid containing cell found mainly in the renal medulla between the tubular and vascular structures (1). These highly specialized fibroblast-like cells are abundant in the inner medulla and papilla (2), and are thought to be responsib ...
Procedures for the culture of the human renal proximal tubule (HPT) cellutilizing explanted tissue have been previously reported by this laboratory (1). Several other investigators have also reported the isolation and culture of human renal tubule cells (2, and references therein). Al ...
An important approach in studies of normal, diseased, and malignant cells is their growth in culture. The isolation and subsequent culture of human eplderma1 melanocytes has been attempted since 1957 (1–5), but only since 1982 have pure normal human melanocyte cultures been reproducibly e ...
The pancreatic islet is a microorgan composed of four types of hormone-producing cells. In the human pancreas, the islets comprise about l–2%; of the pancreatic mass, and the islet number is approx 1−2 � 106. The majority of cells, which are mainly located in the center of the islet, are the insulin-produci ...
The enteric nervous system consists of two major plexi, the submucous (Meissner’s) lying between the circular muscle and mucosal layers, and the myenteric (Auerbach’s) between the circular and longitudinal muscle. In recent years, it has become apparent that the chemical coding of the neur ...
The mucosal endocrine cells in the antrum are found as individual elements interspersed among the other epithelial cells (i.e., mucin cells) (Fig. 1). In order to establish the factors regulating endocrine cell function, these cells have to be separated not only from the surrounding epitheli ...
Uterine contractility and cervical tonicity change throughout the menstrual cycle and pregnancy in response to modifications in hormonal environment and tissue receptivity to hormones. The uterine wall consists of a smooth muscle (myometrium) organized into three layers. the i ...
Abnormal proliferation of human vascular smooth muscle cells (hVSMCs) is a central event in the development of atherosclerosis (1–3) As a result, there is considerable interest in the establishment of hVSMC cultures as a mode1 of this disease process However, it has been noted in the past (4,5) that ...
Skeletal muscle cells can be used in vitro for the study of myogenests, as well as in VIVO as gene-delivery vehicles for the therapy of muscle and nonmuscle diseases (1–9). These skeletal muscle cells are derived from muscle satellite cells, which he between the basal lamina and the sarcolemma of diffe ...
