Alkaline phosphatase expression/activity and multilineage differentiation potential are the differences between fibroblasts and orbital fat-derived stem cells--a study in animal serum-free culture conditions.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Human orbital fat tissues are a potential source to isolate stem cells for the development of regenerative medicine therapies. For future safe clinical application of these cells, it is critical to establish animal component-free culture conditions as well as to clearly define the stem cell population characteristics differentiating them from other cell types, such as fibroblasts. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare phenotypic and functional characteristics of orbital fat-derived stem cells (OFSCs) and fibroblasts resident in the eyelid skin in donor-matched samples grown in culture medium supplemented with pooled allogeneic human serum (HS) replacing fetal bovine serum (FBS). We first investigated the proliferative effects of OFSCs on HS, and then we compared the alkaline phosphatase (AP) expression and activity, immunophenotypic profile, and in vitro multilineage differentiation potential of OFSCs side-by-side with fibroblasts. The results showed that HS enhanced OFSCs proliferation without compromising their immunophenotype, AP activity, and osteogenic, adipogenic, and chondrogenic differentiation capacities. In contrast to OFSCs, the fibroblasts did not exhibit AP expression and activity and did not have multilineage differentiation potential. The results enabled us to successfully distinguish OFSCs from fibroblasts populations, suggesting that AP expression/activ

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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