Search

Osteosarcoma (OS), a malignancy primarily affecting children and adolescents, is the most frequently encountered malignant, non-hematologic, bone tumor. Despite the gradual improvement of survival rates, the management of this disease remains problematic due to challenges such metastasis development, its heterogeneous characteristics, and resistance to cytostatic drugs. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a partially ionized gas operating at near room temperature, which is comprised of free carriers, excited or neutral molecules, and active radicals capable of initiating diverse physical phenomena and chemical reactions represent a new and innovative potential solution in cancer therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the capacity of CAP produced by our custom-build plasma source to induce cytotoxic effects to HOS cells and to analyze post-treatment modulations of cdk1, tnf α and tp53 genes expression. Direct and indirect CAP treatments effectiveness on HOS cells were evaluated by MTT assay and the regulation of interest genes expression were carried out by RT-qPCR analysis. Cell viability analysis revealed a strong cytotoxic effect of direct CAP treatment on HOS cells, while the indirect treatment resulted in a slight decrease of cells viability. Direct CAP treatment modulates the expression of all analyzed genes, both at 2- and 24-hours posttreatment. In conclusion, direct CAP treatment produced by our custom-build plasma source have cytotoxic effects on HOS cells up to 24 hours post-treatment. Furthermore, direct CAP treatment induces cell cycle arrest of HOS cells, and the CAP-induced cell death is independent of tp53 gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterized by the uncontrolled proliferation of an atypical plasma cell clone. The main factor preventing the characterization of plasma cells is their low rate in the analyzed samples. Through this study we tried to highlight the necessity of enrichment of MM samples to be analyzed by MLPA and SNParray. Samples from 5 patients diagnosed with MM were investigated and 2 of them were enriched by magnetic sorting with anti-CD138 antibodies and analyzed by SNParray and MLPA. Unsorted samples showed a lower incidence of abnormalities. By analyzing the data, we concluded that even a 30% malignant cell infiltration in the MM sample is not enough and the magnetic sorting is a mandatory for the enrichment of target cells from the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, new hybrid scaffolds based on 3D-printed titanium alloy with spongy bone-like architecture filled with porous hydroxyapatite (i.e. which also mimic compositional and micro geometric features of bone inorganic matrix) were investigated in vitro in terms of cell osteogenic differentiation, matrix maturation and mineralization. MTT-assay proved the high proliferation profile of the osteoblastic cells coincubated with the studied scaffold. RT-PCR evidenced enhanced expression level of several key osteogenic markers, such as Runt-related transcription factor 2, collagen, alkaline phosphatase, bone sialoprotein, osteocalcin. Extracellular matrix staining showed highly collagen synthesis. Alizarin-red staining confirmed nodule bone formation, i.e. matrix mineralization. The results put forward the osteogenic behaviour of the studied scaffolds and consequently their potential for using in bone restoration after further in vivo study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]