BACKGROUND: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a prevalent chronic joint disease caused by various factors. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) therapy is an increasingly promising therapeutic option for osteoarthritis. However, the chronic inflammation of knee joint can severely impede the therapeutic effects of transplanted cells. Gelatin microspheres (GMs) are degradable biomaterial that have various porosities for cell adhesion and cell–cell interaction. Excellent elasticity and deformability of GMs make it an excellent injectable vehicle for cell delivery. METHODS: We created Wharton’s jelly derived mesenchymal stem cells (WJMSCs)-GMs complexes and assessed the effects of GMs on cell activity, proliferation and chondrogenesis. Then, WJMSCs loaded in GMs were transplanted in the joint of osteoarthritis mice. After four weeks, joint tissue was collected for histological analysis. Overexpressing-luciferase WJMSCs were performed to explore cell retention in mice. RESULTS: In vitro experiments demonstrated that WJMSCs loaded with GMs maintained cell viability and proliferative potential. Moreover, GMs enhanced the chondrogenesis differentiation of WJMSCs while alleviated cell hypertrophy. In KOA mice model, transplantation of WJMSCs-GMs complexes promoted cartilage regeneration and cartilage matrix formation, contributing to the treatment of KOA. Compared with other groups, in WJMSCs+GMs group, there were fewer cartilage defects and with a more integrated tibia structure. Tracking results of stable-overexpressing luciferase WJMSCs demonstrated that GMs significantly extended the retention time of WJMSCs in knee joint cavity. CONCLUSION Our results indicated that GMs facilitate WJMSCs mediated knee osteoarthritis healing in mice by promoting cartilage regeneration and prolonging cell retention. It might potentially provide an optimal strategy for the biomaterial-stem cell based therapy for knee osteoarthritis.

A 11-year old female patient with severe thalassemia, receipt a lentivirus-based cell and gene therapy (CGT) therapy in Shenzhen Children′s Hosptial on July 27th, 2021. At the two follow-up visits after discharge, patient were continuously tested positive for HIV screening through HIV Ag/Ab Combo assay (chemiluminescence Immunoassay), and the viral load results of HIV-1 nucleic acid testing (NAT) were both>5 000 copies/ml. The patient can be diagnosed with HIV infection according to the National Guideline for Detection of HIV/AIDS(2020 Revised Edition). The thorough investigation findings and supplementary experiment results indicated that the false-positive HIV-1 NAT results was caused by cross-reactivity between the target sites detected by conventional HIV-1 NAT reagents and the lentiviral vectors fragments integrated into the genome of patient′s hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. In conclusion, it is important for laboratories to select appropriate HIV-1 NAT testing platforms which won′t cause cross-reactivity for the testing of samples from patients who have been treated with HIV-derived vectors. It is also recommended to design and develop NAT testing platforms with multiple target regions labeled by different fluorescents for HIV NAT supplementation experiment to reduce the risk of false-positive diagnoses of HIV infection.

Objective To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of Compound Danshen Dripping Pills combined with conventional western medicine in the treatment of coronary heart disease complicated with diabetes mellitus.Methods Wanfang database,CNKI,VIP,SinoMed,Cochrane Library,PubMed,Embase and Web of Science databases were searched to collect randomized controlled trials(RCTs)of Compound Danshen dripping pills combined with conventional western medicine in the treatment of coronary heart disease complicated with diabetes mellitus.The retrieval time is from the establishment of the database to May 2023.Two researchers independently completed literature screening,data collation and risk of bias evaluation.RevMan 5.4 software was used for Meta-analysis.Results Twenty-four RCTs with a total of 2 546 patients were included.Meta-analysis showed that the treatment of Compound Danshen Dripping Pills combined with conventional western medicine was better than that of conventional western medicine in improving the total effective rate of coronary heart disease complicated with diabetes mellitus[OR=4.93,95%CI(3.49,6.98),P＜0.000 01],plasma adiponectin[MD= 2.79,95%CI(2.30,3.27),P＜0.000 01],reducing fasting blood glucose[SMD=-1.06,95%CI(-1.24,-0.88),P＜0.000 01],postprandial two-hour blood glucose[MD=-1.53,95%CI(-1.71,-1.35),P＜0.000 01],glycosylated hemoglobin[MD=-1.56,95%CI(-2.01,-1.11),P＜0.000 01],homocysteine[MD=-8.47,95%CI(-8.89,-7.97),P＜0.000 01],low density lipoprotein[MD=-0.46,95%CI(-0.69,-0.24),P＜0.000 01],total cholesterol[MD=-0.45,95%CI(-1.11,-0.20),P=0.005],triglycerides[MD=-0.42,95%CI(-0.50,-0.34),P＜0.000 01],interleukin 6[SMD=-1.34,95%CI(-1.61,-1.07),P＜0.000 01],cardiovascular adverse events[OR=0.35,95%CI(0.19,0.64),P=0.000 6],incidence of adverse reactions[OR=0.45,95%CI(0.24,0.86),P=0.01].Conclusion Compound Danshen Dripping Pills combined with conventional western medicine in the treatment of coronary heart disease with diabetes mellitus is more effective than conventional western medicine treatment,and with better safety.However,due to the limit of the quality of the included studies and other factors,the above conclusions still need to be verified by more high-quality clinical trials.