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Objectives: Placental tissue is an established biomaterial used in many clinical applications. However, its use for tissue engineering purposes has not been fully realized. Though articular cartilage extracellular matrix (ECM)-derived oriented scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering were developed, resources are a hindrance to its application. In this regard, the present study investigated the feasibility of using intact decellularized human umbilical cord Wharton’s jelly (hUC-WJ) as a new material for chondrocyte carrier in cartilage tissue engineering. The developed hUC-WJ scaffold provides a good microenvironment for the attachment, viability, and delivery of seeded human autologous chondrocytes. It has an advantage over other biomaterials in terms of abundant availability and similar biochemistry to cartilage ECM. Materials and methods: hUC-WJ obtained from fresh human placenta were decellularized and gamma sterilized. Human cartilage tissue was obtained from the patients with a total knee replacement. The chondrocytes were isolated and expanded in-vitro and seeded onto the hUC-WJ scaffold. The efficiency of the decellularized tissue as a delivery system for human cartilage cells was investigated by histology, immunohistochemistry, cell count, flow cytometry, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results: The results showed that the decellularized hUC-WJ scaffold has supported the microenvironment for chondrocyte attachment and viability without losing its phenotype. In addition, the cells were spread through the hUC-WJ scaffold as confirmed by histology and SEM. Conclusion: Based on obtained results, the hUC-WJ scaffold has great potential as a 3D scaffold for human autologous chondrocyte carriers in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.

To study the effect of paired row system of 100/140 cm drip irrigation along with four levels of drip irrigation and three levels of fertilizer on the yield of TCHB 213 cotton, three set of experiments were conducted during 1996-2001 at the research farm of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The number of bolls per plant and the kapas yield were recorded and analysed. From the individual year analysis it is revealed that 75% of control (IW/CPE=0.6) water through paired row drip combined with 75% of recommended dose of NPK for TCHB 213 cotton stood to be the optimum combination of the two factors (Irrigation and fertilizer) which consistently increased the Kapas yield of TCHB 213.

Human umbilical cord tissue (hUCT) is one of the non-invasive sources of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and comprises similar cell surface markers as that of bone marrow-derived MSCs. Although the MSCs from hUCT are known to have several therapeutic advantages and are found to be implicated in numerous clinical trials, there is often a significant requirement for the expansion of the MSCs at the laboratory level before transplantation. In this regard, the main objective of this study is to compare the variations between cells expanded from single donors and cells pooled from multiple donors. For this, (i) the cells from three individual donors were sequentially expanded up to ten passages (P10) and (ii) the cells from three donors were pooled at P1 and P2 stages, respectively, and expanded sequentially till P10. The expanded cells were characterized for surface markers, trilineage differentiation, and mutational variations at each passage. Furthermore, the cells were pooled and expanded in the 3D stir tank reactor at the P4 passage and checked for variations. Results indicate that the cells at each passage level from both individual and pooled donors were normal concerning the expression of the cell surface markers such as CD90, CD105, CD31, differentiation into osteocyte, chondrocyte, and adipocyte, and no abnormalities were observed in karyotyping. Furthermore, the characteristics of cells expanded in the stirred tank bioreactor were found to be normal. Thus, we conclude that the MSCs can be pooled from the different donors and expanded to the desired numbers before transplantation as there are no variations found at the mutational and characterization levels.