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Chondrogenic induction of bone-marrow-derived stromal cells (BMSCs) is typically accomplished with medium supplemented with growth factors (GF) from the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β)/bone morphogenetic factor (BMP) superfamily. In a previous study, we demonstrated that brief (1–3 days) stimulation with TGF-β1 was sufficient to drive chondrogenesis and hypertrophy using small-diameter microtissues generated from 5000 BMSC each. This biology is obfuscated in typical large-diameter pellet cultures, which suffer radial heterogeneity. Here, we investigated if brief stimulation (2 days) of BMSC microtissues with BMP-2 (100 ng/mL) or growth/differentiation factor (GDF-5, 100 ng/mL) was also sufficient to induce chondrogenic differentiation, in a manner comparable to TGF-β1 (10 ng/mL). Like TGF-β1, BMP-2 and GDF-5 are reported to stimulate chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs, but the effects of transient or brief use in culture have not been explored. Hypertrophy is an unwanted outcome in BMSC chondrogenic differentiation that renders engineered tissues unsuitable for use in clinical cartilage repair. Using three BMSC donors, we observed that all GFs facilitated chondrogenesis, although the efficiency and the necessary duration of stimulation differed. Microtissues treated with 2 days or 14 days of TGF-β1 were both superior at producing extracellular matrix and expression of chondrogenic gene markers compared to BMP-2 and GDF-5 with the same exposure times. Hypertrophic markers increased proportionally with chondrogenic differentiation, suggesting that these processes are intertwined for all three GFs. The rapid action, or "temporal potency", of these GFs to induce BMSC chondrogenesis was found to be as follows: TGF-β1 > BMP-2 > GDF-5. Whether briefly or continuously supplied in culture, TGF-β1 was the most potent GF for inducing chondrogenesis in BMSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) to be useful in cartilage repair their propensity for hypertrophic differentiation must be overcome. A single day of TGF-β1 stimulation activates intrinsic signaling cascades in BMSCs which subsequently drives both chondrogenic and hypertrophic differentiation. TGF-β1 stimulation upregulates SP7, a transcription factor known to contribute to hypertrophic differentiation, and SP7 remains upregulated even if TGF-β1 is subsequently withdrawn from the chondrogenic induction medium. Herein, we stably transduced BMSCs to express an shRNA designed to silence SP7, and assess the capacity of SP7 silencing to mitigate hypertrophy. SP7 silencing dampened both hypertrophic and chondrogenic differentiation processes, resulting in diminished microtissue size, impaired glycosaminoglycan production and reduced chondrogenic and hypertrophic gene expression. Thus, while hypertrophic features were dampened by SP7 silencing, chondrogenic differentation was also compromised. We further investigated the role of SP7 in monolayer osteogenic and adipogenic cultures, finding that SP7 silencing dampened characteristic mineralization and lipid vacuole formation, respectively. Overall, SP7 silencing affects the trilineage differentiation of BMSCs, but is insufficient to decouple BMSC hypertrophy from chondrogenesis. These data highlight the challenge of promoting BMSC chondrogenesis whilst simultaneously reducing hypertrophy in cartilage tissue engineering strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cyclodextrin glucanotransferase (CGTase)-producing bacterium was isolated from Manleluag hyperalkaline spring, Pangasinan, the first to be reported from a hyperalkaline environment in the Philippines. The isolate, M136, had the highest CGTase enzyme activity (46.01 U/mL) out of the forty-one similar bacterial isolates and exceeds the CGTase activity of the reference strain, Paenibacillus sp. JCM 9143. Using whole genome analysis, M136 was identified as Alkalihalobacillus lehensis. The CGTase enzyme produced by Alkalihalobacillus lehensis M136 was partially purified with 73.97% recovery and post-purification activity of 49.52 U/mL. The enzyme has an estimated molecular weight of 78.64 kDa and an isoelectric point of 4.72. Enzyme characterization revealed that it was stable at 30-80 °C (optimal activity at 70 °C), pH 4.0-10.0 (optimal activity at pH 6.0), and in the presence of different metal ions and reagents such as zinc, calcium, magnesium, and manganese, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, iodoacetic acid, sodium dodecyl sulfate, and phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]