Author(s)

Yaodong Yuan¹, Jianhua Gao¹, Zi Jing¹, Yan Shi¹, Feng Lu¹, Zhangbo Chen²

¹Department of Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
²Clinical Laboratory, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, Shanghai, China.

Tissue engineering chambers (TECs) represent a new and attractive in vivo tissue engineering model that can successfully generate mature adipose tissue. However, the newly formed adipose tissue is not able to fill the volume of the chamber as expected. To investigate whether the capsule surrounding the newly formed adipose tissue limits the adipose tissue volume in the chamber, we detected fibrotic parameters two months after these chambers were implanted into rats. The results showed that the newly formed adipose tissue was surrounded by a thick layer of capsule, and the protein levels of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), phosphorylated Smad2 (p-Smad2), connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), collagen type I (COL-I) and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in the capsule were increased. The levels of these proteins decreased following systemic administration of P144 (a peptide inhibitor of TGF-β1). Furthermore, the capsule thickness was significantly reduced, and the adipose tissue volume was markedly greater when using P144. These findings indicate that capsule formation, which is mediated through a TGF-β1 signaling pathway, restricted the volume of the engineered adipose tissue that was formed. This study may provide a new approach to regenerate amounts of adipose tissue for the reconstruction of large soft tissue defects.

Adipose Tissue, Tissue Engineering Chamber, Capsule Formation, Transforming Growth Factor-β1, P144

Yuan, Y. , Gao, J. , Jing, Z. , Shi, Y. , Lu, F. and Chen, Z. (2021) P144 Increases Adipose Tissue Volume by Inhibiting TGF-β1-Mediated Fibrous Capsule Formation in a Tissue Engineering Chamber. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 9, 98-109. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2021.912008.