Sharif Digital Repository

Harnessing neural stem cells to repair neuronal damage is a promising potential treatment for neuronal diseases. To enable future therapeutic efficacy, the survival, proliferation, migration and differentiation of neural stem/progenitor cells (NPCs) should be accurately studied and optimized in in vitro platforms before transplanting these cells into the body for treatment purposes. Such studies can determine the appropriate quantities of the biochemical and biomechanical factors needed to control and optimize NPC behavior in vivo. In this study, NPCs were cultured within a microfluidic device while being encapsulated within the collagen matrix. The migration and differentiation of NPCs were... 

E.coli was immobilized by entrapment within calcium alginate beads using cell suspensions of different concentrations. The immobilization procedure resulted in beads with a homogeneous cell distribution, referred to as a Non-overlapping Cell (NC) configuration. If cells within the beads were allowed to grow, the NC configuration would transform into a Clustered Cell (CC) configuration as a, result of cell growth. Enzyme activity and substrate conversion were obtained for NC and CC configurations of different cell density, using penicillin G acylation by penicillin G acylase, to produce. 6-amino penicillanic acid. Enzyme activity and conversion were found to depend on both cell concentration... 

We report the development of a metastasis-on-a-chip platform to model and track hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)–bone metastasis and to analyze the inhibitory effect of an herb-based compound, thymoquinone (TQ), in hindering the migration of liver cancer cells into the bone compartment. The bioreactor consisted of two chambers, one accommodating encapsulated HepG2 cells and one bone-mimetic niche containing hydroxyapatite (HAp). Above these chambers, a microporous membrane was placed to resemble the vascular barrier, where medium was circulated over the membrane. It was observed that the liver cancer cells proliferated inside the tumor microtissue and disseminated from the HCC chamber to the... 

A novel hydrogen sulfide microbial biosensor was developed based on investigating the influence of four design parameters: cell concentration, immobilization bed type, hydrogen sulfide concentration, and geometrical shape of the biosensor. Thiobacillus thioparus was used as the recognition element and it was immobilized on sodium alginate as well as agarose bed. The results were optimized by the application of statistical optimization software based on response time of the system. Oxygen reduction was considered as the detection sign. Sodium alginate solution with a concentration of 2.3% (w/v) and optical density of 10 at 605. nm was found as the optimum conditions for immobilization with... 

In this research, a two-stage process consisting of cultivation in nutrient rich and nitrogen starvation conditions was employed to enhance lipid production in Chlorella vulgaris algal biomass. The effect of supplying different organic and inorganic carbon sources on cultivation behavior was investigated. During nutrient sufficient condition (stage I), the highest biomass productivity of 0.158. ±. 0.011. g/L/d was achieved by using sodium bicarbonate followed by 0.130. ±. 0.013, 0.111. ±. 0.005 and 0.098. ±. 0.003. g/L/d for sodium acetate, carbon dioxide and molasses, respectively. Cultivation under nitrogen starvation process (stage II) indicated that the lipid and fatty acid content... 

In this paper, a micromechanical model for connective soft tissues based on the available histological evidences is developed. The proposed model constituents i.e. collagen fibers and ground matrix are considered as hyperelastic materials. The matrix material is assumed to be isotropic Neo-Hookean while the collagen fibers are considered to be transversely isotropic hyperelastic. In order to take into account the effects of tissue structure in lower scales on the macroscopic behavior of tissue, a strain energy density function (SEDF) is developed for collagen fibers based on tissue hierarchical structure. Macroscopic response and properties of tissue are obtained using the numerical... 

This study proposes a mathematical model to evaluate the impact of oxygen carriers and scaffold geometry on oxygen distribution and cell growth in a 3D cardiac construct using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Flow equations, oxygen balance equation and cell balance equation were solved using special initial and boundary conditions. The modeling results revealed that 55% increase in cardiac cell density occurred by using 6.4% perfluorocarbon oxygen carrier (PFC) compared to pure culture medium without PFC supplementation. Moreover, the effects of the scaffold geometry on cell density were examined by changing the channel numbers and the construct length. A 30% increase in the average cells... 

Intracellular production of recombinant proteins in prokaryotes necessitates subsequent disruption of cells for protein recovery. Since the cell disruption and subsequent purification steps largely contribute to the total production cost, scalable tools for protein release into the extracellular space is of utmost importance. Although there are several ways for enhancing protein release, changing culture conditions is rather a simple and scalable approach compared to, for example, molecular cell design. This contribution aimed at quantitatively studying process technological means to boost protein release of a periplasmatic recombinant protein (alkaline phosphatase) from E. coli.... 

Microfluidic devices are beneficial in miniaturizing and multiplexing various cellular assays in a single platform. Chondrogenesis is known to pertain to chemical, topographical, and mechanical cues in the microenvironment. Mechanical cues themselves have numerous parameters such as strain magnitude, frequency, and stimulation time. Effects of different strain magnitudes on the chondrogenic differentiation of adult stem cells have not been explored thoroughly. Here, a new multilayer microdevice is presented for the unidirectional compressive stimulation of cells in a three-dimensional cell culture. Numerical simulations were performed to evaluate and optimize the design. Results showed a... 

A Zn-Rich (GaN)1−x(ZnO)xnanostructure was synthesized with the assistance of a high-gravity technique in order to reduce the reaction time and temperature. The synthesized inorganic nanomaterial has been applied in both drug and gene delivery systems, and as the first fully inorganic nanomaterial, it was investigated in a comprehensive cellular investigation as well. In order to increase the potential bioavailability, as well as the interactions with the pCRISPR, the nanomaterial was enriched with additional Zn ions. The nanomaterial and the final nanocarrier were characterized at each step before and after any biological analysisviaFESEM, AFM, TEM, FTIR and XRD. The polymer coated...