Experimental conditions, which were defined according to central composite design, consisted of specific permutations of substrate stiffness (3 144 kPa) and adhesion protein concentration (7 520 μg/mL).
We demonstrated the ability to generate these arrays without the need for liquid handling systems and screened the combinatorial effects of substrate stiffness and immobilized cell adhesion peptide concentration on human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) behavior during short-term 2-dimensional cell culture.
Finally, changes in adhesion molecule concentration may represent less active atherosclerosis.
It is quite likely that an improvement in endothelial function will also result in changes in adhesion molecule concentration.
Neff at al. [ 24] found that fibroblast migration and proliferation decreased with the increasing of the adhesion peptide concentration.
Our study was not designed to elucidate the mechanisms linking lipid lowering therapy to changes in adhesion molecule concentration, but it is possible that all of the above mentioned mechanisms contribute to the observed changes of plasma levels of E-selectin and VCAM-1.
Changes in lipids may play an important role, because we and others [ 7] observed that some but not all of the changes in adhesion molecule concentrations correlate with the changes in the concentration and/or lipid composition.
To test the effect of heparin/heparan sulfates on adhesion, increasing concentrations of heparin (Sigma) or heparan sulfates (Sigma) were added to the bacterial suspension, and incubated for 30 min at 37°C.
There was no difference of adhesion molecule concentrations after the washout periods, respectively.
It is unclear whether fibrate or statin therapy has more beneficial effects on adhesion molecule concentrations.
Increased circulating adhesion molecule concentrations have been reported in RA [ 23, 24, 28, 29].
