University of Trieste

4 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Biology

Application of Retinoic Acid to Obtain Osteocytes Cultures from Primary Mouse Osteoblasts

Deborah Mattinzoli¹, Piergiorgio Messa², Alessandro Corbelli¹, Masami Ikehata¹, Anna Mondini¹, Cristina Zennaro³, Silvia Armelloni¹, Min Li¹, Laura Giardino¹, Maria Pia Rastaldi¹

¹Renal Research Laboratory, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, ²Department of Nephrology, Dialysis and Renal Transplant, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, ³Renal Physiopathology Laboratory, Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste

Treatment of primary mouse osteoblasts with retinoic acid produces a homogeneous population of ramified cells bearing morphological and molecular features of osteocytes. The method overcomes the difficulty of obtaining and maintaining primary osteocytes in culture, and can be advantageous to study cells derived from transgenic models.

Chemistry

Low Pressure Vapor-assisted Solution Process for Tunable Band Gap Pinhole-free Methylammonium Lead Halide Perovskite Films

Carolin M. Sutter-Fella^*1,2,3, Yanbo Li^*1,4, Nicola Cefarin^1,5,6, Aya Buckley^1,7, Quynh Phuong Ngo^8,9, Ali Javey^2,3, Ian D. Sharp¹, Francesca M. Toma¹

¹Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ²Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, ³Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ⁴Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, ⁵Department of Physics, Graduate School of Nanotechnology, University of Trieste, ⁶TASC Laboratory, IOM-CNR - Istituto Officina dei Materiali, ⁷Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, ⁸Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, ⁹Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Here, we present a protocol for the synthesis of CH₃NH₃I and CH₃NH₃Br precursors and the subsequent formation of pinhole-free, continuous CH₃NH₃PbI_3-xBr_x thin films for the application in high efficiency solar cells and other optoelectronic devices.

Immunology and Infection

Evaluation of the Interplay Between the Complement Protein C1q and Hyaluronic Acid in Promoting Cell Adhesion

Romana Vidergar^*1, Chiara Agostinis^*2, Paola Zacchi¹, Alessandro Mangogna¹, Fleur Bossi², Fabrizio Zanconati³, Marco Confalonieri³, Giuseppe Ricci^2,3, Roberta Bulla¹

¹Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, ²Institute for Maternal and Child Health, IRCCS (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico) Burlo Garofolo, ³Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Science, University of Trieste

The complement component C1q is a pro-inflammatory molecule highly expressed in the tissue microenvironment that can interact with the extracellular matrix. Here, we describe a method to test how C1q bound to hyaluronic acid impacts cell adhesion.

Genetics

Generation of Cancer Cell Clones to Visualize Telomeric Repeat-containing RNA TERRA Expressed from a Single Telomere in Living Cells

Laura Avogaro¹, Claudio Oss Pegorar¹, Nicole Bettin^1,2, Emilio Cusanelli¹

¹Laboratory of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology - CIBIO, University of Trento, ²Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste

Here, we present a protocol to generate cancer cell clones containing a MS2 sequence tag at a single subtelomere. This approach, relying on the MS2-GFP system, enables visualization of the endogenous transcripts of telomeric repeat-containing RNA (TERRA) expressed from a single telomere in living cells.