Discussion. Improvement of the survival of human autologous fat transplantation by using VEGF-transfected adipose-derived stem cells.

摘要

The study by Dr. Lu et al. was designed to test an important hypothesis about whether the use of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-transfected adipose-derived stem cells could improve the survival of fat transplants. The authors conducted a nicely done animal study in a nude mouse model and studied fat grafts mixed with either VEGF-transfected adipose-derived stem cells, adipose-derived stem cells without VEGF transduction, insulin, or culture medium. The maintained volume of transplanted fat grafts, histology, and capillary density in each fat graft specimen that survived were evaluated after 6 months. Lu et al. found that the use of either VEGF-transfected adipose-derived stem cells or adipose-derived stem cells alone can significantly increase the survival of transplanted fat grafts, with a higher maintained volume and a lesser degree of tissue fibrosis and fat necrosis. In contrast, fat grafts mixed with insulin were less effective in improving the survival of transplanted fat grafts. Interestingly, the fat grafts mixed with VEGF-transfected stem cells had a higher degree of angiogenesis compared with the fat grafts mixed with adipose-derived stem cells only. However, both stem cell-treated groups had a significant increase of angiogenesis compared with the groups without the mixture of stem cells. On the basis of their findings, the authors conclude that adipose-derived stem cell therapy with or without the combination of VEGF via transduction by gene therapy can significantly improve the survival of transplanted fat grafts. The stem cell therapy may be highly useful in future autologous fat grafting in a clinical setting.