Adipose Tissue, Regeneration, and Skin Health: The Next Regenerative Frontier

Abstract

Adipose tissue, fat compartments, through the years have been considered as storage depots and an energy source. However, a major amount of new research, starting with the discovery of adipose derived stem cells, has redirected this thinking toward the tremendous regenerative capacity that adipose tissue has when it is healthy. This has resulted in multiple technologies being explored with fat as a basis or with fat as a target aiming at the stimulation of new small hyperplastic adipose cells exuding adipokines and encouraging the proliferation of a whole host of progenitor cells that can have positive effects on many organ systems. One of these organ systems is skin and there is a direct correlation with various fat compartments and skin health. Dermal fat tissue, also known as dermal white adipose tissue (dWAT) is one such compartment that originates from dermal preadipocytes transdifferentiating into adipocytes and progenitor adipose cells under the right cues. This paper discusses these potential cues including injectable fillers, fat grafts, topical formulations and their capacity to impact on skin health through generation of healthy fat tissue. In addition, small molecules such as GLP-1 peptides and their impact on fat tissue is discussed. Adipose tissue is being recognized as the next regenerative frontier with exciting prospects ahead.