Human Adipose Tissue Derived Hydrogel with Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Vascularized Adipose Tissue Formation

The ability to engineer vascularized adipose tissue may offer an alternative to traditional approaches to tissue reconstruction following tumor resection and for treatment of congenital defects. While progress has been made in adipose tissue engineering, our incomplete knowledge of the factors regulating adipogenesis limits the ability to design appropriate conditions for promoting rapid and stable vascularized adipose tissue formation. The free fat graft was initially used as a filler material for simple soft-tissue augmentation, but the recent advancement of adult stem cells for the clinical application in the radiotherapy tissue damage has been reported. Human adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) can be obtained from liposuction aspirates, and differentiate into multiple lineages of mesodermal or ectodermal origins. Lee had addressed that the cryopreserved human umbilical cord blood is a useful alternative source of neural progenitor cells, such as multipotent progenitor cells, for experimental and therapeutic applications. The research team on this proposal has previously shown that tissue derived hydrogels can support adipogenesis in vitro and in vivo. However, in these studies the materials were taken from rat tissue. To evaluate a source of hydrogels more appropriate for clinical application, tissue derived hydrogels will be taken from human adipose and dermis and evaluated for their ability to promote adipogenesis. In addition, the hydrogels will be combined with stem cells to see if vascularized adipose formation can be accelerated. Two sources of stem cells will be evaluated and compared: adipose tissue and cord blood. The objectives of this project include the determination whether human adipose can be used as a source of tissue derived hydrogels, the effect of adipose engineering with the combination of the human adipose-derived hydrogels and stem cells. The role of glycoproteins in tissue derived hydrogels will be also explored and a synthetic poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogel is developed to mimic of tissue derived hydrogels. The investigations of this project may enhance the adipose tissue engineering from the human adipose tissue, which may introduce the new techniques and appropriate material to replace the soft tissue defects caused by congenital deformity trauma, infection, and neoplasm.

Project ID:PC10001-0217
External Project ID:NSC98-2314-B182A-098-MY3