Trial Lecture – Time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Göran Laurell, Uppsala University
- Second opponent: Professor emeritus Haakon Benestad, University of Oslo
- Third member of the adjudication committee: Associate Professor Greg Eigner Jablonski, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Associate Professor Yvonne Böttcher, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Professor Magnus Von Unge, University of Oslo
Summary
As many as 200 million people worldwide suffer from defects in the tympanic membrane that causes draining, infections and hearing loss. A more thorough understanding of the specificity of the epidermal keratinocytes of the tympanic membrane is necessary for targeting future research on finding new and more effective treatment modalities for perforations.
The aim of the thesis is to describe the isolation of cells from the tympanic membrane and create a molecular profile or fingerprint of the tympanic membrane skin cells. Also, the authors investigated aspects of storing cultured skin cells for the purpose of transplantation.
In microarrays of cultured cells several highly expressed genes involved in migration were identified in the tympanic membrane cells. An assay measuring the migration of the cells showed that there are functional differences between tympanic membrane and ordinary skin cells.
Further investigations of microRNA arrays and proteomics analyses showed a similar preponderance of molecules involved in migration and actomyosin structure organisation.
The loss of site specific stem cells in the tympanic membrane is a plausible explanation to surgery resistant perforations. This provides a rationale for cell treatment. When cells are cultured for transplantation storage upon delivery to the patient is very important. In a study of skin cells stored at a span of storage temperatures between 4°C and 37°C, cells showed the best viability at 24°C. Cells stored at 12°C to 16°C showed the best preserved morphology. Storage at 12°C to 24°C was far superior to 4°C that has traditionally been chosen for storage to ensure low cellular metabolism. Low metabolism had the cost of great loss of viable cells.
Cultured tympanic membrane keratinocytes can provide a new treatment option and make a useful in vitro model for studying the molecular aspects of normal homeostasis and treatment of perforations and other pathologies.
Additional information
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