Buffaloes are raised by small farm holders primarily as source of draft power owing to its resistance to hot climate, disease, and stress conditions. Over the years, transformation of these animals from draft to dairy was deliberately carried out through genetic improvement program leading to the development of buffalo‐based enterprises. Buffalo production is now getting more attention and interest from buffalo raisers due to its socioeconomic impact as well as its contribution to propelling the livestock industry in many developing countries. Reproduction of buffaloes, however, is confronted with huge challenge and concern as being generally less efficient to reproduce compared with cattle due to both intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as poor estrus manifestation, silent heat, marked seasonal infertility, postpartum anestrus, long calving interval, delayed puberty, inherently low number of primordial follicles in their ovaries, high incidence of atresia, and apoptosis. Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) are major interventions for the efficient utilization of follicle reserve in buffaloes. The present review focuses on estrus and ovulation synchronization for fixed time artificial insemination, in vitro embryo production, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, cryopreservation of oocytes and embryos, somatic cell nuclear transfer, the factors affecting utilization in various ARTs, and future perspectives in buffaloes.

Deficiency of corneal epithelium causes vision impairment or blindness in severe cases. Transplantation of corneal epithelial cells is an effective treatment but the availability of the tissue source for those cells is inadequate. Stem cells can be induced to differentiate to corneal epithelial cells and used in the treatment. Multipotent stem cells (mesenchymal stem cells) and pluripotent stem cells (embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells) are promising cells to address the problem. Various protocols have been developed to induce differentiation of the stem cells into corneal epithelial cells. The feasibility and efficacy of both human stem cells and animal stem cells have been investigated for corneal epithelium regeneration. However, some physiological aspects of animal stem cells are different from those of human stem cells, the protocols suited for animal stem cells might not be suitable for human stem cells. Therefore, in this review, only the investigations of corneal epithelial differentiation of human stem cells are taken into account. The available protocols for inducing the differentiation of human stem cells into corneal epithelial cells are gathered and compared. Also, the pathways involving in the differentiation are provided to elucidate the relevant mechanisms.

Corneal epithelium, the outmost layer of the cornea, comprises corneal epithelial cells (CECs) that are continuously renewed by limbal epithelial stem cells (LESCs). Loss or dysfunction of LESCs causes limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) which results in corneal epithelial integrity loss and visual impairment. To regenerate the ocular surface, transplantation of stem cell-derived CECs is necessary. Human Wharton’s jelly derived mesenchymal stem cells (WJ-MSCs) are a good candidate for cellular therapies in allogeneic transplantation. This study aimed to test the effects of treatments on three signaling pathways involved in CEC differentiation as well as examine the optimal protocol for inducing corneal epithelial differentiation of human WJ-MSCs. All-trans retinoic acid (RA, 5 or 10 µM) inhibited the Wnt signaling pathway via suppressing the translocation of β-catenin from the cytoplasm into the nucleus. SB505124 downregulated the TGF-β signaling pathway via reducing phosphorylation of Smad2. BMP4 did not increase phosphorylation of Smad1/5/8 that is involved in BMP signaling. The combination of RA, SB505124, BMP4, and EGF for the first 3 days of differentiation followed by supplementing hormonal epidermal medium for an additional 6 days could generate corneal epithelial-like cells that expressed a CEC specific marker CK12. This study reveals that WJ-MSCs have the potential to transdifferentiate into CECs which would be beneficial for further applications in LSCD treatment therapy.

In this study, a methodology to design frame-like periodic solids for isotropic symmetry by appropriate sizing of unit-cell struts is presented. The methodology utilizes the closed-form effective elastic constants of 2D frame-like periodic solids with square symmetry and 3D frame-like periodic solids with cubic symmetry, derived using the homogenization method based on equivalent strain energy. By using the closed-form effective elastic constants, an equation to enforce isotropic symmetry can be analytically constructed. Thereafter, the equation can be used to determine relative unit-cell strut sizes that are required for isotropic symmetry. The methodology is tested with 2D and 3D frame-like periodic solids with some common unit-cell topologies. Satisfactory results are observed.