Adipose-derived Stem Cells Transplantation For Lymphedema And Mechanisms

Lymphedema is a problem of tissue fluid imbalance often due to congenital lymphatic dysplasia or secondary lymph backflow obstacles.The treatment of chronic lymphedema is universally regarded as a difficult medical problem and the researches in this regard have been kept on,but the effects are limited attributing to the difficulty to fundamentally rebuild the network of lymphatic circulatory structures and reconstruction of the lymphatic vessels.Along with the development of medical science and advances in biotechnology,transplantation of stem cells has been recognized as an effective method to cure this disease.The feasibility is confirmed that marrow mesenchymal stem cells transplantation can alleviate obstructive lymphedema,however,the inconvenience?trauma and medical ethics restrict the futher development and application of marrow mesenchymal stem cells transplantation.Adipose-derived stem cells is likely to become a promising cell source due to its multiple advantages including: easy to harvest,possible to obtain large quantity,no donor site morbidity,strong expansion capability and readily accepted by patient,etc.Up to date,no studies have yet shown the feasibility of using ASC for treatment of lymphedema,partly because it is difficult to purify the stem cell in ASC with lymphatic endothelial cell differentiation potential and establish lymphatic models in mice,and other main causes lie in complexity of the therapeutic mechanism and lack optimal tracers of lymphatic vessels.To solve problems above,the study investigate the following several aspects:(1)Construct the animal model based on the combination of surgery and radiotherapy.(2)Purify ASCs with VEGFR-3 which is proved a specific marker for lymphatic vessels.(3)Explore the therapeutic effect of ASCs transplantation for lymphedema by injecting cells to animal model.(4)Further illustrate the mechanism the transplantation of ASCs.(5)Explore an efficient way of tracing lymphatic circulation.Therefore,the study draws conclusion as follows: firstly,the method of constructing animal model is reliable;secondly,purified ASCs with VEGFR-3 can differentiate into lymphatic endothelial cells;thirdly,ASCs promote lymphatic regeneration with directly differentiation and indirectly paracrine;lastly,it is viable that using fluorescent dextran-based nanogels as an efficient tracer of lymphatic vessels.To sum up,this study provided technical support and a useful research model for lymphatic regeneration medicine.