Bone Marrow Direct

The progression of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) towards its more advanced stages is accompanied by increasing body stores of iron. Iron accumulates in macrophages as well as microglia, endothelial cells and myocytes. The iron burden is especially intense in the bone marrow, brain white matter, muscle and liver. Such excesses of iron will enhance oxidative stress, impair several already compromised immune defence mechanisms and directly promote the growth of microbes (Boelaert et ah, 1996). 

Fig. 1.6 (A and B) Scanning electron micro- implantation in the bone marrow showing for-graphs of the porous hydroxyapatite-collagen mation of new bone (white asterisk) attached nanocomposite scaffolds at different magnifi- directly to the nanocomposite (asterisk). Arrows cations. Arrowheads in B indicate the hydroxy- indicate cuboidal osteoblasts on the surface of apatite nanocrystals on the collagen fibrils. new bone. Adapted from [94], reproduced by Histology at (C) 1 week and (D) 4 weeks after permission of Wiley-VCH.

Senesi N, Loffredo E (1999) The chemistry of soil organic matter. In Sparks DL (ed) Soil physical chemistry. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp 239-370 Sujatha TV, Hegde MJ (1998) C-mitotic effects of Trichloroethylene (TCE) on bone marrow cells of mice. Mutat Res 413 151-158 Varanini Z, Pinton R (2001) Direct versus indirect effects of soil humic substances on plant growth and nutrition. In Pinton R, Varanini Z, Nannipieri P (eds) The rizosphere. Marcel Dekker, Basel, pp 141-158 Vijayalaxmi KK, Venu R (1999) In vivo anticlastogenic effects of L-ascorbic acid in mice. Mutat Res 438 47-51... 

Silk fibers or monolayers of silk proteins have a number of potential biomedical applications. Biocompatibility tests have been carried out with scaffolds of fibers or solubilized silk proteins from the silkworm Bombyx mori (for review see Ref. [38]). Some biocompatibility problems have been reported, but this was probably due to contamination with residual sericin. More recent studies with well-defined silkworm silk fibers and films suggest that the core fibroin fibers show in vivo and in vivo biocompatibility that is comparable to other biomaterials, such as polyactic acid and collagen. Altmann et al. [39] showed that a silk-fiber matrix obtained from properly processed natural silkworm fibers is a suitable material for the attachment, expansion and differentiation of adult human progenitor bone marrow stromal cells. Also, the direct inflammatory potential of silkworm silk was studied using an in vitro system [40]. The authors claimed that their silk fibers were mostly immunologically inert in short and long term culture with murine macrophage cells. 

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