Immunomodulatory Effects of Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cells on Concanavalin A-Induced Acute Liver Injury in Mice.

Cell therapy with adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) is expected to be a candidate for the treatment of fulminant hepatic failure (FHF), which is caused by excessive immune responses. In order to evaluate the therapeutic effects of ASCs on FHF, the in vitro and in vivo immunomodulatory effects of ASCs were examined in detail in the mouse model. The in vitro effects of ASCs were examined by assessing their influence on the proliferation of lymphomononuclear cells (LMCs) stimulated with three kinds of mitogens: phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) plus ionomycin, concanavalin A (ConA), and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The proliferation of LMCs was efficiently suppressed in a dose-dependent manner by ASCs in the cases of PMA plus ionomycin stimulation and ConA stimulation, but not in the case of LPS stimulation. The in vivo effects of transplanted ASCs were examined in the murine FHF model induced by ConA administration. The ALT levels and histological inflammatory changes in the ConA-administered mice were apparently relieved by the transplantation of ASCs. The analysis of mRNA expression patterns in the livers indicated that the expressions of the cytokines such as Il-6, Il-10, Ifn-γ, and Tnf-α, and the cell surface markers such as Cd3γ, Cd4, Cd8α, Cd11b, and Cd11c were downregulated in the ASC-transplanted mice. The immunomodulatory and therapeutic effects of ASCs were confirmed in the mouse model both in vitro and in vivo. These suggest that the cell therapy with ASCs is beneficial for the treatment of FHF.

Estimation of mechanical dispersion and dispersivity in a soil-gas system by column experiments and the dusty gas model.

In a previous study, column experiments were carried out with Toyoura sand (permeability 2.05×10(-11)m(2)) and Toyoura sand mixed with bentonite (permeability 9.96×10(-13)m(2)) to obtain the molecular diffusion coefficient, the Knudsen diffusion coefficient, the tortuosity for the molecular diffusion coefficient, and the mechanical dispersion coefficient of soil-gas systems. In this study, we conducted column experiments with field soil (permeability 2.0×10(-13)m(2)) and showed that the above parameters can be obtained for both less-permeable and more-permeable soils by using the proposed method for obtaining the parameters and performing column experiments. We then estimated dispersivity from the mechanical dispersion coefficients obtained by the column experiments. We found that the dispersivity depended on the mole fraction of the tracer gas and could be represented by a quadratic equation.