Researchers Use Stem Cells From Fat to Repair Bone

University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) scientists may have found a clever way to use stem cells found in fat tissue to repair or replace bone damage from trauma, cancer or other injuries.

The technique, tested in mice with broken shin bones, could improve current bone grafting procedures, which are common but sometimes not as successful as doctors and patients would like.

Bone grafting is done to strengthen joint replacements, fuse vertebrae, improve healing of bad fractures or replace bone loss. It involves removing healthy bone from either the patient who needs the graft or from a donor, living or dead. But bone tissue isn’t always available and grafts don’t always work, so scientists have been hunting for techniques to improve or replace the procedure.

The UCSF team first found that cartilage cells, when grafted instead of bone cells into a shin fracture in mice, promoted healing. The cartilage cells encouraged bone growth, plus the cells themselves eventually turned into bone.

Next, the scientists took stem cells found in fat tissue and, using certain growth factors, teased the cells into cartilage cells, which in turn became bonecells.

The scientists believe that someday doctors may be able to implant a scaffold structure that releases growth factors in the area that needs repairing and transforms stem cells from fat – which is much easier to access than bone or cartilage – intobone.

The research was published online in the Journal of Bone and MineralResearch.