Browsing by Subject "Heterotopic ossification (HO)"

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    Microenvironmental factors that regulate mesenchymal stem cells: lessons learned from the study of heterotopic ossification
    (Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Biología Celular e Histología, 2017) Kan, Chen; Chen, Lijun; Hu, Yangyang; Lu, Haimei; Li, Yuyun; Kessler, John A; Kan, Lixin
    Bone marrow contains a non-hematopoietic, clonogenic, multipotent population of stromal cells that are later called mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). Similar cells that share many common features with MSC are also found in other organs, which are thought to contribute both to normal tissue regeneration and to pathological processes such as heterotopic ossification (HO), the formation of ectopic bone in soft tissue. Understanding the microenvironmental factors that regulate MSC in vivo is essential both for understanding the biology of the stem cells and for effective translational applications of MSC. Unfortunately, this important aspect has been largely underappreciated. This review tries to raise the attention and highlight this critical issue by updating the relevant literature along with discussions of the key issues in the area.
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    Wnt signaling in physiological and pathological bone formation
    (Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Biología Celular e Histología, 2019) Tan, Zhenya; Ding, Na; Lu, Haimei; Kessler, John A.; Kan, Lixin
    Wnt signaling, canonical or non-canonical, plays conserved roles in numerous physiological and pathological processes. However, it is well beyond the scope of this review to cover all functional aspects of Wnt signaling in different contexts at reasonable depth; therefore this review intends to cover only the roles of Wnt signaling in bone biology; more specifically, we intend to first update the roles of Wnt signaling in physiological bone process, including in osteogenesis and chondrogenesis, since recent years have witnessed tremendous progressions in this area, and then we seek to extend our understanding to the pathological bone process, especially to the heterotopic ossification (HO), even though the understanding of Wnt signaling in HO has been limited. We then further clarify the potential crosstalking between Wnt and other conserved signaling pathways, including FGF, GPCR and Hif1α pathways. Overall, our goal is to update the progressions, identify the general theme and the knowledge gaps and discuss the potential promising avenue for future applications in HO prevention and treatment.