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Activating mutations in the fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) cause the most common genetic form of human dwarfism, achondroplasia (ACH). Small chemical inhibitors of FGFR tyrosine kinase activity are considered to be viable option for treating ACH, but little experimental evidence supports this claim. We evaluated five FGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) (SU5402, PD173074, AZD1480, AZD4547 and BGJ398) for their activity against FGFR signaling in chondrocytes. All five TKIs strongly inhibited FGFR activation in cultured chondrocytes and limb rudiment cultures, completely relieving FGFR-mediated inhibition of chondrocyte proliferation and maturation. In contrast, TKI treatment of newborn mice did not improve skeletal growth and had lethal toxic effects on the liver, lungs and kidneys. In cell-free kinase assays as well as in vitro and in vivo cell assays, none of the tested TKIs demonstrated selectivity for FGFR3 over three other FGFR tyrosine kinases. In addition, the TKIs exhibited significant off-target activity when screened against a panel of 14 unrelated tyrosine kinases. This was most extensive in SU5402 and AZD1480, which inhibited DDR2, IGF1R, FLT3, TRKA, FLT4, ABL and JAK3 with efficiencies similar to or greater than those for FGFR. Low target specificity and toxicity of FGFR TKIs thus compromise their use for treatment of ACH. Conceptually, different avenues of therapeutic FGFR3 targeting should be investigated.

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The successional dental lamina (SDL) plays an essential role in the development of replacement teeth in diphyodont and polyphyodont animals. A morphologically similar structure, the rudimental successional dental lamina (RSDL), has been described in monophyodont (only one tooth generation) lizards on the lingual side of the developing functional tooth. This rudimentary lamina regresses, which has been proposed to play a role in preventing the formation of future generations of teeth. A similar rudimentary lingual structure has been reported associated with the first molar in the monophyodont mouse, and we show that this structure is common to all murine molars. Intriguingly, a lingual lamina is also observed on the non-replacing molars of other diphyodont mammals (pig and hedgehog), initially appearing very similar to the successional dental lamina on the replacing teeth. We have analyzed the morphological as well as ultrastructural changes that occur during the development and loss of this molar lamina in the mouse, from its initiation at late embryonic stages to its disappearance at postnatal stages. We show that loss appears to be driven by a reduction in cell proliferation, down-regulation of the progenitor marker Sox2, with only a small number of cells undergoing programmed cell death. The lingual lamina was associated with the dental stalk, a short epithelial connection between the tooth germ and the oral epithelium. The dental stalk remained in contact with the oral epithelium throughout tooth development up to eruption when connective tissue and numerous capillaries progressively invaded the dental stalk. The buccal side of the dental stalk underwent keratinisation and became part of the gingival epithelium, while most of the lingual cells underwent programmed cell death and the tissue directly above the erupting tooth was shed into the oral cavity.

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The generation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) of sufficient quantity and quality remains a major challenge for biomedical application. Here we present an efficient feeder-free, high-density monolayer system in which hPSCs become SSEA-3-high and gradually more viable than their feeder-dependent counterparts without changes attributed to culture adaptation. As a consequence, monolayer hPSCs possess advantages over their counterparts in embryoid body development, teratoma formation, freezing as a single-cell suspension, and colony-forming efficiency. Importantly, this monolayer culture system is reversible, preserving the competence of hPSCs to gradually reacquire features of colony growth, if necessary. Therefore, the monolayer culture system is highly suitable for long-term, large-scale propagation of hPSCs, which is necessary in drug development and pluripotent stem cell-based therapies.

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For human embryonic stem cells (ESC) to be used in cell replacement therapies, they must be grown under good manufacturing conditions in a chemically defined medium that lacks animal proteins. This study examined the ability of a newly designed medium containing the plant-derived serum replacement VegetaCell and other reagents of human origin to support undifferentiated growth and pluripotency of human ESC. This medium was tested in several culture systems, using human fibroblasts as a feeder layer or Matrigel in a feeder-free culture. Even under the most stringent feeder-free conditions without conditioned medium, human ESC exhibited an undifferentiated morphology, expressed markers of undifferentiated cells, demonstrated high alkaline phosphatase activity and multilineage differentiation and retained a normal karyotype. Compared with human ESC grown in standard culture conditions, human ESC maintained in humanized VegetaCell medium show longer cell cycles and decreased cell death. The availability of an animal protein-free medium supplemented with the low-cost VegetaCell reagent expands the repertoire of media for culturing human ESC as well as induced pluripotent stem cells for drug testing and cell replacement therapy.

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The transcription program that is responsible for the pluripotency of human ESCs (hESCs) is believed to be comaintained by exogenous fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2), which activates FGF receptors (FGFRs) and stimulates the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. However, the same pathway is stimulated by insulin receptors, insulin-like growth factor 1 receptors, and epidermal growth factor receptors. This mechanism is further complicated by intracrine FGF signals. Thus, the molecular mechanisms by which FGF-2 promotes the undifferentiated growth of hESCs are unclear. Here we show that, in undifferentiated hESCs, exogenous FGF-2 stimulated the expression of stem cell genes while suppressing cell death and apoptosis genes. Inhibition of autocrine FGF signaling caused upregulation of differentiation-related genes and downregulation of stem cell genes. Thus, exogenous FGF-2 reinforced the pluripotency maintenance program of intracrine FGF-2 signaling. Consistent with this hypothesis, expression of endogenous FGF-2 decreased during hESC differentiation and FGF-2 knockdown-induced hESC differentiation. In addition, FGF-2 signaling via FGFR2 activated MAPK kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase and AKT kinases, protected hESC from stress-induced cell death, and increased hESC adhesion and cloning efficiency. This stimulation of self-renewal, cell survival, and adhesion by exogenous and endogenous FGF-2 may synergize to maintain the undifferentiated growth of hESCs.

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