Effects of Human Insulin Gene Transfection on the Adipogenic Differentiation of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Silk Fibroin Scaffolds in Vitro

Cheng Zhang¹, Yi Liu^1*, Jun Tang¹, Meisi Xue¹, Sijia Min²

¹Center of Burns and Plastic Surgery, Lanzhou General Hospital, Lanzhou, China.
²Department of Sericultural Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

DOI: 10.4236/ojrm.2015.42003                

Abstract

The resorption of the transplanted fat over time limited the use of autologous fat for the reconstruction of soft tissue defect. Tissue engineering (TE) adipose with silk fibroin scaffold could be a promising substitute for soft tissue filling. In this study, we try to develop a tissue engineering adipose in vitro by seeding silk fibroin scaffold with human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSCs) after transfected with recombinant human insulin gene lentivirus. Our aim was to observe the effects of the insulin gene transfection on the adipogenesis of hUCMSCs when cultured with silk fibroin scaffolds. The hUCMSCs infected with recombinant lentiviral pLenti6.3-insulin-IRES-EGFP were seeded on silk fibroin scaffolds and cultured in adipogenic differentiation medium for 5 - 7 days. The expression of adipogenic gene PPARγ-2 was tested by RT-PCR after 7 days culture of adipogenic induction. The accumulation of cytoplasmic droplets of neutral lipids was assessed by Oil Red O staining. The RNA and protein expression of transfected insulin gene in hUCMSCs were detected by QPCR and western blot. The effect of recombinant lentivirus transfection on the growth and proliferation of hUCMSCs was observed by MTT test. We observed that the 2^-ΔΔCt value of insulin gene expression of hUCMSCs in the transfected group was 300.25 times higher than that in the untransfected group. The western blot showed that a positive band was discerned at the site of a relative molecular mass of 8 × 10³ Dalton in transfected group. After adipogenic culture for 7 days, under the fluorescent inverted phase-contrast microscope, after Oil Red O staining, a lot of adipocytes appeared in silk fibroin scaffold; round adipose droplets showed intracellularly; the size of the adipocytes was not homogenous, and the density of adipocytes in transfected group was significantly higher than that in untransfected group (P = 0.007, P < 0.01). RT-PCR results showed that the expression of adipogenic gene PPARγ-2 in transfected group was much stronger than that in untransfected group. MTT test showed that there was no significant difference in optical density (A) at each time point between transfected group and nontransfected group (P = 0.056, P > 0.05). And there was also no significant difference in optical density (A) between cell group and cell-scalffold group (P = 0.066, P > 0.05). We concluded that insulin gene could obviously promote the adipogenic differentiation of hUCMSCs, and a tissue engineering adipose could be constructed by the silk fibroin scaffolds seeded with human insulin gene-modified hUCMSCs effectively in vitro.

Keywords

Tissue Engineering Adipose, Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Silk Fibroin, Insulin, Recombinant Lentivirus, Gene Transfection

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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