A significant proportion of prostate cancer patients treated with curative intent go on to develop advanced disease. At a fundamental biological level, very little is known about what makes the disease aggressive and metastatic. Observational pathology reports and experimental data suggest that epithelial-mesenchymal transition is involved in prostate cancer invasiveness. Here, we investigated vimentin expression of prostate cancer cells, and explored the potential mechanism of vimentin promoting prostate cancer cells invasion. Vimentin expression was not detected in well differentiated tumors or in moderately differentiated tumors, but the majority of poorly differentiated cancers (5/11 with negative bone scan, 11/14 bone with positive scan) and bone metastases (8/8) had high vimentin expression in tumor cells. Downregulation of vimentin expression in PC-3 cells by transfection with antisense-vimentin led to a significant decrease in tumor cells motility and invasive activity. Furthermore, the expression of E-cadherin was inversely associated with expression of vimentin. Our results suggest that vimentin affects prostate cancer cells motility and invasiveness.

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TMJ disc related diseases are difficult to be cured due to the poor repair ability of the disc. TMJ-SDSCs were ideal cell sources for cartilage tissue engineering which have been widely used in hyaline cartilage regeneration. Fibrin gel has been demonstrated as a potential scaffold for neocartilage formation. The aim of this study was to repair the TMJ disc perforation using fibrin/chitosan hybrid scaffold combined with TMJ-SDSCs. Rat TMJ-SDSCs were cultured on hybrid scaffold or pure chitosan scaffolds. The cell seeding efficiency, distribution, proliferation, and chondrogenic differentiation capacity were investigated. To evaluate the in vivo repair ability of cell/scaffold construct, rat TMJ disc explants were punched with a defect to mimic TMJ disc perforation. Cell seeded scaffolds were inserted into the defect of TMJ disc explants and then were implanted subcutaneously in nude mice for 4 weeks. Results demonstrated that fibrin may improve cell seeding, proliferation, and chondrogenic induction in vitro. The in vivo experiments showed more cartilage ECM deposition in fibrin/chitosan scaffold, which suggested an enhanced reparative ability. This pilot study demonstrated that the regenerative ability of TMJ-SDSCs seeded in fibrin/chitosan scaffold could be applied for repairing TMJ disc perforation.

OGCC demonstrates clinical and radiographic features of a malignant tumour with high recurrence.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common joint degenerative disease that causes pain, joint damage, and dysfunction. External hyaluronic acid (HA) supplement is a common method for the management of osteoarthritis which requires multi‐injections. It is demonstrated that biodegradable mesoporous silica nanoparticles successfully deliver an enzyme, hyaluronan synthase type 2 (HAS2), into synoviocytes from the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) and generate endogenous HA with high molecular weights. In a rat TMJ osteoarthritis inflammation model, this strategy promotes endogenous HA production and inhibits the synovial inflammation of OA for more than 3 weeks with one‐shot administration. Such nanotherapy also helps repairing the bone defects in a rat OA bone defect model.

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Stafne bone cavity (SBC) was mostly described as a small oval radiolucency in the posterior mandibular region. To the best of our knowledge, the literature does not contain any report of the use of cone beam CT (CBCT) sialography for the diagnosis of this entity. The aim of this paper is to present a large, irregular and expanded atypical SBC, which made diagnosis difficult. A CBCT sialography was performed to get a definite diagnosis of this rare entity.

To regenerate the complex tissue such as bone-cartilage construct using tissue engineering approach, controllable differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) into chondrogenic and osteogenic lineages is crucially important. This study proposes to test a minimum common osteochondrocytic differentiation medium (MCDM) formulated by including common soluble supplements (dexamethasone and ascorbic acid) used to induce chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation. The MCDM coupled with supplemented growth factors was tested for its ability to differentiate BMSCs into osteogenic and chondrogenic lineages in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional culture systems. When transforming growth factor beta3 was added to MCDM, BMSCs differentiated to chondrocyte-like cells, evidenced by the expression of glycosaminoglycans and type II collagen, whereas osteogenic differentiation was induced by supplementing osteogenic protein-1, resulting in detectable expression of osteopontin and osteocalcin. These chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation markers were significantly enhanced in the three-dimensional cultures compared to the two-dimensional monolayer cultures. The results achieved in this study lay a foundation for future development of osteochondral graft, which could be engineered from bilayered scaffold with spatially loaded growth factors to control BMSC differentiation.