Future of fat as raw material for tissue regeneration

Tissue replacement traditionally requires use of autologous tissue and is associated with the attendant morbidity of donor site harvest. In the case of allograft transplantation, there are concerns, similar to those associated with organ transplantation, of rejection and immunosuppression. For these reasons, emphasis has been placed on the development of tissue-engineered substitutes that incorporate autologous stem cells into tissue-engineered scaffolds. The authors' laboratory has characterized a population of cells obtained from processed lipoaspirate (PLA), which have the capacity in vitro to differentiate into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, myocytes, adipocytes, and neuron-like cells.(1) Adipose tissue is an abundant, expendable, and easily obtained tissue that may prove to be an ideal source of autologous stem cells for engineering tissues.