Construction of engineering adipose-like tissue in vivo utilizing human insulin gene-modified umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cells with silk fibroin 3D scaffolds.

We evaluated the use of a combination of human insulin gene-modified umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cells (hUMSCs) with silk fibroin 3D scaffolds for adipose tissue engineering. In this study hUMSCs were isolated and cultured. HUMSCs infected with Ade-insulin-EGFP were seeded in fibroin 3D scaffolds with uniform 50-60 µm pore size. Silk fibroin scaffolds with untransfected hUMSCs were used as control. They were cultured for 4 days in adipogenic medium and transplanted under the dorsal skins of female Wistar rats after the hUMSCs had been labelled with chloromethylbenzamido-1,1'-dioctadecyl-3,3,3',3'-tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate (CM-Dil). Macroscopical impression, fluorescence observation, histology and SEM were used for assessment after transplantation at 8 and 12 weeks. Macroscopically, newly formed adipose tissue was observed in the experimental group and control group after 8 and 12 weeks. Fluorescence observation supported that the formed adipose tissue originated from seeded hUMSCs rather than from possible infiltrating perivascular tissue. Oil red O staining of newly formed tissue showed that there was substantially more tissue regeneration in the experimental group than in the control group. SEM showed that experimental group cells had more fat-like cells, whose volume was larger than that of the control group, and degradation of the silk fibroin scaffold was greater under SEM observation. This study provides significant evidence that hUMSCs transfected by adenovirus vector have good compatibility with silk fibroin scaffold, and adenoviral transfection of the human insulin gene can be used for the construction of tissue-engineered adipose.