In this task, you are given a passage which has a question and the context. You have to generate an answer to the question based on the information present in the context.
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Question: Context: The aim of this study was to develop an assay system that can quantify the amount of biomass in biofilms formed by different isogenic mutants of an Escherichia coli K-12 strain.', 'The reported assay, which is based on the BacTiter-Glo assay from Promega, uses bioluminescence to detect the intracellular concentration of ATP, which correlates with viable bacterial cell numbers. The quantitative data obtained with this ATP assay were compared to those obtained with the conventional crystal violet assay. As a qualitative control, scanning electron microscopy was performed.\Question: Does a combination of assays reveal biomass differences in biofilms formed by Escherichia coli mutants?

Answer: The ATP assay, the crystal violet assay and scanning electron microscopy yielded similar results for six of the eight strains tested. For the remaining two strains, the images from the scanning electron microscopy confirmed the results from the ATP assay.

Question: Context: We have previously demonstrated that hypertonic saline (HS) resuscitation decreased inflammation and mucosal injury after mesenteric ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). In contrast to I/R cell necrosis, apoptosis provides controlled cell death that minimizes inflammation. We therefore hypothesized that HS resuscitation after mesenteric I/R would induce apoptosis and decrease mucosal injury.', "Rats underwent 60 minutes of superior mesenteric artery occlusion (SMAO) and then received no resuscitation or resuscitation with 4 mL/kg of HS, 4 mL/kg of lactated Ringer's (LR) solution (equal volume), or 32 mL/kg of LR solution (equal salt load). Rats were killed at 6 hours of reperfusion, and ileum was harvested for analysis. DNA fragmentation (apoptosis) was assessed by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end-labeling (TUNEL) and mucosal injury by histology (Chiu score 0-5). Caspase-3 (proapoptotic mediator) and Bcl-xL (antiapoptotic mediator) protein expression were analyzed by Western immunoblot.", 'SMAO with no resuscitation, SMAO with 4 mL/kg of LR, and SMAO with 32 mL/kg of LR increased apoptosis (quantitated by TUNEL) and I/R-induced mucosal injury (quantitated by Chiu score). This was associated with an increase to similar levels in both proapoptotic caspase-3 and antiapoptotic Bcl-xL protein expression. Moreover, SMAO with 4 mL/kg of HS further increased apoptosis but decreased mucosal injury. This was associated with a differential expression of proapoptotic caspase-3 over antiapoptotic Bcl-xL.\Question: Does hypertonic saline resuscitation after mesenteric ischemia/reperfusion induce ileal apoptosis?

Answer: HS resuscitation after mesenteric I/R significantly increased ileal mucosal apoptosis while decreasing mucosal injury and may represent a novel mechanism by which HS resuscitation after mesenteric I/R reduces inflammation and imparts protection to the gut.

Question: Context: Cord blood (CB) hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has often been limited by the scarcity of stem cells. Therefore, the number of CB hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) should be increased while maintaining the stem cell characteristics.', 'We designed an ex vivo culture system using endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) as stroma to determine the capacity of expanding CB-HSPCs in a defined medium, the effect on engraftment of the expanded cells in a mouse model and the underlying mechanism.', "After 7 days of culture, compared with those cultured with cytokines alone (3.25 0.59), CD34+ cells under contact and non-contact co-culture with EPCs were expanded by 5.38 0.61 (P = 0.003) and 4.06 0.43 (P = 0.025)-fold, respectively. Direct cell-to-cell contact co-culture with EPCs resulted in more primitive CD34+ CD38- cells than stroma-free culture (156.17 21.32 versus 79.12 19.77-fold; P = 0.010). Comparable engraftment of day 7 co-cultured HSPCs with respect to HSPCs at day 0 in nonobese diabetic-severe combined immunodeficiency disease (NOD/SCID) mice was measured as a percentage of chimerism (13.3% 11.0% versus 16.0% 14.3%; P = 0.750). EPCs highly expressed interleukin 6 (IL6) and angiopoietin 1 (ANGPT1), the hematopoietic- related cytokines. A higher transcriptional level of WNT5A genes in EPCs and co-cultured HSPCs suggests that the activation of Wnt signaling pathway may play a role in HSPCs' expansion ex vivo.\Question: Do endothelial progenitor cells promote efficient ex vivo expansion of cord blood-derived hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells?

Answer:
These data demonstrated that EPCs improve the CD34+ population but do not compromise the repopulating efficacy of the amplified HSPCs, possibly via cytokine secretion and Wnt signaling pathway activation.