A Review of Cell-Based Strategies for Soft Tissue Reconstruction

Abstract

Soft tissue reconstruction to restore volume to damaged or deficient tissue beneath the skin remains a challenging endeavor. Current techniques are centered around autologous fat transfer, or the use of synthetic substitutes, however, a great deal of scientific inquiry has been made into both the molecular mechanisms involved in, and limitations of, de novo adipogenesis, that is, the formation of new adipose tissue from precursor cells. To best comprehend these mechanisms, an understanding of defined markers for adipogenic differentiation, and knowledge of both commercially available and primary cell lines that enable in vitro and in vivo studies is necessary. We review the growth factors, proteins, cytokines, drugs, and molecular pathways that have shown promise in enhancing adipogenesis and vasculogenesis, in addition to the multitude of scaffolds that act as delivery vehicles to support these processes. While progress continues on these fronts, equally important is how researchers are optimizing clinically employed strategies such as autologous fat transfer through cell-based intervention, and the potential to augment this approach through isolation of preferentially adipogenic or angiogenic precursor subpopulations, which exists on the horizon. This review will highlight the novel molecular and synthetic modifications currently being studied for inducing adipose tissue regeneration on a cellular level, which will expand our arsenal of techniques for approaching soft tissue reconstruction.

Tissue Engineering for Clean Meat Production

“…Generating IMF in-vitro may require intensive research, as current adipose tissue engineering research focuses on fat outside the muscle (Hong et al, 2005;Gomillion and Burg, 2006;Brett et al, 2017) and uses human and mouse models, which protocols are inefficient for ruminant animals (Laliotis et al, 2010;Ma et al, 2018). Research on adipose tissue vascularization using matured ECs and MSCs, revealed a synergetic effect between angiogenesis and adipogenesis (Kang et al, 2009;Wittmann et al, 2015;Volz et al, 2016).…”

Tailored Melt Electrowritten Scaffolds for the Generation of Sheet‐Like Tissue Constructs from Multicellular Spheroids

“…Adipose tissue engineering aims to provide alternatives to current reconstructive procedures . Adipose‐derived stromal cells (ASCs) are easily accessible through liposuction procedures and have been widely employed in tissue engineering approaches.…”

In vitro tissue-engineered adipose constructs for modeling disease

“…This review aims to assess recent advances in 3D modeling for diseases centered on adipose tissue such as: obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cancer adjacent to adipocytes. Although 3D adipose models are also used for soft tissue reconstruction after physical trauma or tumor resections, these topics are outside the scope of disease-based models covered in this review, but are thoroughly reviewed elsewhere [6][7][8].…”