Advances in adipose-derived stem cells and cartilage regeneration: review article

Abstract

The cartilage is a connective tissue that, due to the strength of its extracellular matrix, allows the tissue to tolerate mechanical stress without undergoing permanent deformation. It is responsible for the support of soft tissues and due to its smooth surface and elasticity, gives the joints the ability to slip and bend. excessive weight, excessive activity, or trauma can all cause cartilage to injury. The injury can lead to swelling, pain and varying degrees of mobility loss. The process of repairing musculoskeletal (orthopedic) injuries has led to problems in the medical field, which can be attributed to the inherent weakness of adult cartilage tissue. Therefore, this necessitates research focused on the development of a new restructuring strategy by combining chondrocytes or stem cells with scaffolds and growth factors to address these problems. Correspondingly, the recent tissue engineering strategies strongly support the simultaneous use of stem cells, scaffolds and growth factors. It has also been observed that due to the relatively low proliferation of transplanted chondrocytes, new cartilage models construction have examined the use of adipose-derived stem cells. Mature adipose tissue is produced as an important source of multi-functional stem cells that can be easily separated from the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) by adipose liposuction digestion. The adipose-derived stem cells are easily accessible without any serious complications and have the power to differentiate into several cell lines, including chondrocytes as well as, they evidence self-renewal when trapped in gel scaffolds such as collagen. Also, recent studies demonstrate some of the mechanisms involved in the process of making cartilage of adipose-derived stem cells in vitro and their restorative ability in bio-engineered scaffolds in the presence of growth factors. In addition, the important role of non-encoding mRNA molecules (miRNAs) has been identified in the process of chondrogenic differentiation of adipose-derived stem cells. Furthermore, in several studies, the effect of several miRNAs has been confirmed on the regulation of the cartilage differentiation of the adipose-derived stem cells and has also been associated with effective results. In this article, we will present an overview of the advance in adipose-derived stem cells application in cartilage regeneration.

Keywords

• chondrogenesis
• stem cells
• tissue scaffolds