In vivo tracking of rat preadipocytes after autologous transplantation

Recent research suggests that transplantation of adipocyte precursors may solve some of the problems encountered with autologous adipocyte transplantation. Numerous earlier and recent in vitro studies have proved that preadipocytes, under certain circumstances, will differentiate into adipocytes and will build up a vacuole. The in vivo control of the success to implant a single-cell suspension of viable preadipocytes and to breed them to mature fat cells has, until now, been lacking. In a Lewis rat model, preadipocytes were harvested by digestion of fat tissue with collagenase type II, separated by repeated centrifugation, incubated with PKH26 (a nontoxic fluorescent surface marker), and reimplanted into the donor animal. In a follow-up of 6 months, the gradual differentiation of the fluorescent graft cells toward adipocytes could be observed using the confocal microscope. The observed changes in the graft cells were in exact accordance with the authors' expectations, which were based on the in vitro studies in literature. This study encourages further research of manipulated preadipocytes, feeding patterns, and so forth.