Improved fat transplantation survival by using the conditioned medium of vascular endothelial growth factor transfected human adipose-derived stem cells

Autologous fat transplantation has been applied widely in clinic. However, the low survival rate is still a problem to be solved. Studies shows that the human adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) transfected by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) can improve the survival rate of autologous fat transplantation. Our study is to evaluate the effects of the conditioned medium of VEGF-transfected human adipose-derived stem cells (VEGF-ADSCs-CM) on fat transplantation. ADSCs were isolated and transfected with MOI = 40. The study was divided into three groups, VEGF-ADSCs-CM group, normal-ADSCs-CM group and control group. The conditioned media for VEGF-ADSCs-CM group and normal-ADSCs-CM group were collected, and then mixed with fat, with the mixtures being injected into the back of nude mice. On 4, 7, 15, 30, 60 days after transplantation, the grafts were evaluated on the wet weight, histology, ELISA and western blot. As the results revealed, the survival rate of VEGF-ADSCs-CM group was highest with the best fat cell morphology, and the VEGF secretion of VEGF-ADSCs-CM group was also highest. Therefore, our study demonstrates that VEGF-ADSCs-CM can improve the survival rate of fat transplantation effectively, and VEGF-ADSCs-CM can be regarded as an effective assisted method for fat transplantation.