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Cervera-Negueruela, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Cervera-Negueruela, M..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Integrated Microfluidic Platform for High-Throughput Generation of Intestinal Organoids in Hydrogel Droplets

Organoid research offers valuable insights into human biology and disease, but reproducibility and scalability remain significant challenges, particularly for epithelial organoids. Here, we present an integrated microfluidic platform that addresses these limitations by enabling high-throughput generation of uniform hydrogel microparticles embedded with intestinal stem cells. Our platform includes a cell distribution system for homogenous cell encapsulation and a microfluidic oil removal module for efficient particle transfer to aqueous media. We demonstrate the successful culture and differentiation of both healthy and tumor-derived intestinal organoids within these microparticles, achieving high homogeneity and reproducibility. This integrated microfluidic approach holds promise for scalable and standardized organoid production, with potential applications in drug screening, disease modeling, and personalized medicine.

bioengineering↗

Unravelling the ageing-reversal potency of stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles in a rat model of premature cardiac senescence

Cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs) and the extracellular vesicles they release (CDC-EVs) have demonstrated to induce rejuvenation and to improve cardiac structure and function, but their efficacy may vary among donors and there is still a lack of adequate potency assays. We aimed to identify parameters that could easily predict the ageing-reversal potency of CDC-EVs. CDCs derived from cardiac tissue of 34 human donors (age range: 3-months to 81-years old) were characterized in terms of their phenotypical and biological properties. The anti-senescent activity of the CDC-EVs was assessed in vitro using a predesigned matrix assay with several ageing-related markers. We found that while CDC-donors chronological age was not determinant, the degree of CDC senescence in culture showed a strong correlation to most CD[C]s bioactive properties. However, CDC senescence alone was insufficient to predict CDC-EV in vitro potency. Thus, we scored the potency of the CDC-EVs based on their performance in the newly designed in vitro matrix assay and classified them as more-(P-EVs) and less-potent (NP-EVs). We then tested P- and NP-EVs in a rat model of premature cardiac ageing and found that only the P-EVs reduced senescence-associated GLB1 gene expression in the heart and tended to protect it from hypertrophy development and fibrosis. On the contrary, NP-EVs failed to induce any improvements and negatively affected cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis, and perfusion. In conclusion, despite CDC-EV anti-ageing potency cannot be predicted by the chronological age of the donors or CDC senescence as surrogate markers, we propose an in vitro potency assay that could be used to evaluate allogenic EV suitability before its use in the treatment of cardiac ageing.

cell biology↗