Over the years, cardiovascular diseases continue to increase and affect not only human health but also the economic stability worldwide. The advancement in tissue engineering is contributing a lot in dealing with this immediate need of alleviating human health. Blood vessel diseases are considered as major cardiovascular health problems. Although blood vessel transplantation is the most convenient treatment, it has been delimited due to scarcity of donors and the patient's conditions. However, tissue-engineered blood vessels are promising alternatives as mode of treatment for blood vessel defects. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of the advancement on biofabrication technology for treatment of soft tissue defects particularly for vascular tissues. This will also provide an overview and update on the current status of tissue reconstruction especially from autologous stem cells, scaffolds, and scaffold-free cellular transplantable constructs. The discussion of this paper will be focused on the historical view of cardiovascular tissue engineering and stem cell biology. The representative studies featured in this paper are limited within the last decade in order to trace the trend and evolution of techniques for blood vessel tissue engineering.

Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus L.) are a good source of antioxidants and contain appreciable levels of functional compounds. This study was carried out to evaluate fruit qualities (pH, soluble solids content, titratable acidity, and minerals), functional compounds (total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, anthocyanins, and ellagic acid), and antioxidant activity among five mutated blackberry lines over three ripening stages to examine the effect of fruit maturation on functional compounds and antioxidant activity. The content of sugars, total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, and anthocyanins (cyanidin-3-O-glucoside, cyanidin-3-O-xyloside, cyanidin-3-O-malonylglucoside, and cyanidin-3-O-dioxalylglucoside) increased as fruit development advanced, whereas the ellagic acid content decreased as the fruit became more mature. Among the minerals tested, potassium showed the highest concentrations at all stages of development. The antioxidant activity was correlated with total phenolic content (P≤0.01), total flavonoid content (P≤0.01), and total anthocyanins (P≤0.05). The results indicate that Maple and B201 lines contained the highest anthocyanin content and exhibited greater antioxidant activity.

Purple grain color is associated with higher anthocyanin accumulation and antioxidant capacity in wheat. Wheat mutants developed in this study may serve as a valuable source of antioxidants. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.

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3-deoxysilybin (3-DS), also known as (-)-isosilandrin A, is a natural flavonoid of Silybum marianum. This study was designed to investigate the anti-inflammatory effect and the underlying molecular mechanisms of 3-DS in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages. 3-DS dose-dependently inhibited the production of NO and the expression of iNOS in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages. 3-DS also inhibited the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (MCP-1, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β) in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages. Moreover, 3-DS decreased the NF-κB DNA binding activity in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages. Furthermore, 3-DS suppressed NF-κB activation by inhibiting the degradation of IκBα and nuclear translocation of p65 subunit of NF-κB in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages. Taken together, the present study suggests for the first time that 3-DS may exhibit an anti-inflammatory effect through the suppression of NF-κB transcriptional activation in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages.