Stem cells vascular density

Fig. 7.6 Vascular density was statistically greater in the anterolateral walls of animals that received the stem cells. Reprinted from [63]...

Silva GV, Litovsky S, Assad JA, Sousa AL, Martin BJ, Vela D, Coulter SC, Lin J, Ober J, Vaughn WK, Branco RV, Oliveira EM, He R, Geng YJ, Willerson JT, Perin EC. Mesenchymal stem cells differentiate into an endothelial phenotype, enhance vascular density, and improve heart function in a canine chronic ischemia model. Circulation 2005 111 150-156. 

Research on carotenoids and cardiovascular disease (CVD) stems from the discovery that the etiology of this disease involves oxidative processes that may be slowed by exogenous antioxidants. One of the best understood processes contributing to development of CVD is the oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL). When LDL becomes oxidized, it is readily taken up by foam cells in the vascular endothelium where it contributes to the development of atherosclerotic lesion. Enhancement of the oxidative stability of LDL may also prevent other oxidative steps involved in clinical expression of coronary disease (e.g., myocardial infarction) and possibly steps not related to LDL oxidation. There is optimism about the potential role of P-carotene in prevention of CVD... 

At the stem apex, alkaloids are present in all the young undifferentiated cells. According to Molle (6), the most recently formed cells have comparatively little, the precipitations increasing to a maximum density at a short distance behind the actual apex. The zone of tissue differentiation is also abundantly supplied, but as differentiation proceeds, alkaloids disappear from the vascular strands, and then from the central tissues of the pith. When differentiation is complete, the alkaloids are located principally in three concentric layers, in the epidermis and outer cortical layers just below it, in parenchyma within and adjacent to the phloem, and in the periphery of the pith just inside the xylem strands. The xylem parenchyma and medullary rays also possess alkaloids after they have disappeared from the conducting elements. 

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