Adipogenic potential of stem cells derived from rabbit subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue in vitro

Rabbits are considered as appropriate animal models to study some obesity-associated abnormalities because of the similarity of their blood lipid profile and metabolism to humans. The current study was focused on comparison of adipose differentiation ability in rabbit adipose-derived stem cells (ADSC) in vitro. Subcutaneous and visceral stromal vascular fractions (SVF) were isolated from three 28-d-old New Zealand rabbits by collagenase digestion. Supernatants from both isolates were collected 24 h after the initial plating. On the fourth passage, all isolated cell types undergo triplicate adipogenic induction. The adipose induction potential was calculated as percentage of increasing optical density (OD) values. The data revealed that with increasing the number of induction cycles, the induction tendency in visceral ADSC decreased in contrast to the subcutaneous ones. Although the supernatants did not reach induction levels of their relevant precursors, they follow the same pattern in both subcutaneous and visceral ADSC. All cell types successfully passed osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation. In conclusion, the best adipose induction ability was observed in directly plated subcutaneous cell population. The increase of induction numbers depressed adipose induction ability in cell populations derived from visceral fat depots.