McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Stem Cells Transl Med. 2022 Mar 17;11(2):200-212. doi: 10.1093/stcltm/szab014.
Epidural fat is commonly discarded during spine surgery to increase the operational field. However, mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) have now been identified in human epidural fat and within the murine dura mater. This led us to believe that epidural fat may regulate homeostasis and regeneration in the vertebral microenvironment. Using two MPC lineage tracing reporter mice (Prx1 and Hic1), not only have we found that epidural fat MPCs become incorporated in the dura mater over the course of normal skeletal maturation, but have also identified these cells as an endogenous source of repair and regeneration post-dural injury. Moreover, our results reveal a partial overlap between Prx1+ and Hic1+ populations, indicating a potential hierarchical relationship between the two MPC populations. This study effectively challenges the notion of epidural fat as an expendable tissue and mandates further research into its biological function and relevance.
硬膜外脂肪在脊柱手术中通常被丢弃，以增加手术视野。然而，人类硬膜外脂肪和鼠类硬脑膜中现在已经鉴定出间充质祖细胞（MPC）。这使我们相信硬膜外脂肪可能调节椎体内环境的稳态和再生。使用两种 MPC 谱系追踪报告小鼠（Prx1 和 Hic1），我们不仅发现硬膜外脂肪 MPC 在正常骨骼成熟过程中会整合到硬脑膜中，而且还鉴定出这些细胞是硬脑膜损伤后修复和再生的内源性来源。此外，我们的结果显示 Prx1+和 Hic1+群体之间存在部分重叠，表明这两种 MPC 群体之间存在潜在的层次关系。这项研究有效地挑战了硬膜外脂肪作为一种可消耗组织的观点，并要求对其生物学功能和相关性进行进一步研究。
