Comparação entre células-tronco isoladas do tecido adiposo da pálbebra humana e fibroblastos

Abstract

Human orbital fat tissues are a potential source to isolate stem cells for the development of regenerative medicine therapies. For future clinical application of these cells is critical to establish animal components free culture conditions as well as clearly define the stem cells population differentiating it from other cell types, such as fibroblasts. The mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) share in vitro similarities with fibroblasts and there are no specific markers allowing a clear distinction between these two cell types. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare phenotypic and functionally orbital fat-derived stem cells (OFSCs) and fibroblasts resident in the eyelid skin grown in culture medium supplemented with allogeneic human serum (HS) or plasma (HP) replacing fetal bovine serum (FBS). The results showed that there was a greater cell proliferation kinetics in the presence of culture medium supplemented with HS indicating the feasibility of use of this supplement for clinical application to optimize the ex vivo expansion of cells before transplants. The OFSCs grown in this medium showed the immunophenotypic characteristics of MSCs and were able to differentiate into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes. In contrast, the fibroblasts did not have multilineage differentiation potential and showed low levels of alkaline phosphatase expression and activity. The results enabled us to successfully distinguish OFSCs and fibroblasts populations and enabling future studies to evaluate the eyelid fibroblasts as a substitute for limbal fibroblasts works for ocular surface reconstruction and also allow evaluation studies of the eyelids as a stem cells niche to the eyeball.