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Primary hepatocytes (PHs) are indispensable for studying liver function, drug screening, and regenerative medicine. However, freshly isolated PHs only survive for a few hours in non-adherent suspension culture. This study proposes treatment with PEG-GRGDS, a polymer-peptide conjugate comprising polyethylene glycol (PEG) and the pentapeptide sequence Gly-Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser (GRGDS), to sustain the viability of dispersed single PHs under non-adherent conditions. As a proof of concept, PHs treated with the PEG-GRGDS molecule were cultured in a microarray with single-cell-sized microwells. After 24 h of culture, enhanced cell survival was confirmed via esterase activity alongside activity for Cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1). Some liver-specific functionalities, including albumin secretion, were observed in the treated PHs. Additionally, it was observed that the length of the PEG-chain in the conjugates influenced the maintenance of single-cell dispersion and the levels of polymerized actin in the cells. These findings suggest that treatment with a polymer-peptide like PEG-GRGDS might provide a promising platform for the short-term culture of non-adherent single PHs., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10616-024-00696-1., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Objective: We assessed the frequency of intraoperative complication rates related to access surgery, operating time, and intraoperative bleeding rates described in the literature for patients undergoing anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) to evaluate the adverse effects and, thus, help in therapeutic decision making and contribute to future clinical trials., Methods: A systematic review was conducted of MEDLINE and Embase databases in March 2023. The main inclusion criteria were adult patients aged >18 years, with no maximum age limit; the use of ALIF; the presence of quantitative data on intraoperative complications; and randomized controlled trials and cohort studies. Vascular and peritoneal injuries were considered primary endpoints. The operative time and intraoperative bleeding rate were secondary endpoints. Reports and case series, case-control series, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses were excluded., Results: Eight studies were included with a total of 2395 patients. We found important quantitative data for future randomized clinical studies involving ALIF surgery, including the rate of vascular lesions (2.79%) and peritoneal lesions (0.37%). In addition to these factors, only 4 of the 8 studies addressed the average surgery time, with a total average of 145.61 minutes. Furthermore, 6 of the 8 articles reported the mean rate of intraoperative bleeding, with a total mean blood loss of 272.75 mL., Conclusions: ALIF is a lumbar spine access technique with low intraoperative complications. Patients with contraindications have a higher risk of complications. Randomized clinical trials are needed to assess the efficacy and safety of the procedure., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Man in the barrel syndrome (MBS) is a condition of brachial diplegia initially described after a bilateral watershed cerebral infarct between the anterior and the middle cerebral artery territories., Objective: To report a case of MBS as a consequence of anterior spinal artery infarct due to vertebral artery dissection., Discussion: More recently, nonischemic lesions in brain and brain stem have also been described as etiologies of MBS. There are few reports describing spinal cord infarction leading to MBS. The anterior spinal artery syndrome with only brachial diplegia also represents a rare and atypical pattern., Conclusion: The conventional neurological consideration that MBS provides a precise anatomical localization is now challenged. The finding of a brachial diplegia leads to the need to investigate the brain, the spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system., (Copyright © 2017 National Stroke Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)