Augmenting the Angiogenic Profile and Functionality of Cord Blood Endothelial Colony-Forming Cells by Indirect Priming with Bone-Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells.

Cellular therapy has shown promise as a strategy for the functional restoration of ischemic tissues through promoting vasculogenesis. Therapy with endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) has shown encouraging results in preclinical studies, but the limited engraftment, inefficient migration, and poor survival of patrolling endothelial progenitor cells at the injured site hinder its clinical utilization. These limitations can, to some extent, be overcome by co-culturing EPCs with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Studies on the improvement in functional capacity of late EPCs, also referred to as endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs), when cultured with MSCs have mostly focused on the angiogenic potential, although migration, adhesion, and proliferation potential also determine effective physiological vasculogenesis. Alteration in angiogenic proteins with co-culturing has also not been studied. We co-cultured ECFCs with MSCs via both direct and indirect means, and studied the impact of the resultant contact-mediated and paracrine-mediated impact of MSCs over ECFCs, respectively, on the functional aspects and the angiogenic protein signature of ECFCs. Both directly and indirectly primed ECFCs significantly restored the adhesion and vasculogenic potential of impaired ECFCs, whereas indirectly primed ECFCs showed better proliferation and migratory potential than directly primed ECFCs. Additionally, indirectly primed ECFCs, in their angiogenesis proteomic signature, showed alleviated inflammation, along with the balanced expression of various growth factors and regulators of angiogenesis.

Hemiatrophy of brain: antenatal ultrasonography and MRI/postnatal MRI diagnosis with the introduction of "shifted falx sign".

Dyke-Davidoff-Masson syndrome (DDMS) is an uncommon congenital/pediatric disorder diagnosed only with the help of imaging. Clinical features associated with it are hemiparesis, seizures, facial asymmetry, and mental retardation. We here present a case of DDMS diagnosed antenatally at 29 weeks gestational age during routine antenatal ultrasound examination. The patient was further evaluated and followed using both ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging during antenatal and postnatal periods. The infant had unilateral hemiatrophy with the absence of anterior and middle cerebral arteries. We hereby also want to coin the term "shifted falx sign" as a diagnostic indicator for DDMS for the first time. To our knowledge, this is the earliest antenatally sonologically diagnosed case of the said pathology.