The Role of Alginate Sponge on Growth and Differentiation of Preadipocytes

ABSTRACT

Recently, many researches have been carried out on the production of artificial tissue using tissue engineering. However, studies on fat tissue are still insufficient. The purpose of this study was to examine that alginate sponge can be used as a three-dimensional scaffold for the culture of preadipocytes compared with fibroblasts, and that preadipocytes can differentiate into mature adipocytes in this sponge. The 3T3-L1 preadipocytes and the 3T3 fibroblasts were separately cultured in three-dimensional alginate sponge for 14 days. The morphology of cell and sponge, cell proliferation rate, and glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase activity were evaluated at the indicated periods. The results were as follows; 1. The alginate sponge showed a highly porous, well-interconnected pore structure and the sizes of pores were from 100 to 400micrometer. 2. The fibroblasts in sponge exhibited spindle shape with long irregular fibers on the 7th day and there was no oil-red O stained cell until 14 days. However, the preadipocytes in alginate sponge were round and some of cells transformed into mature fat cells which were stained with oil-red O after 14 days. 3. The proliferation rates of preadipocyte group were increased gradually during the culture period, but lower than those of fibroblast group(P< 0.05). 4. The glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase activities of preadipocyte group were significantly higher than those of fibroblast group during the culture period(P< 0.05), and the activities of 14 day-cultured preadipocytes were about 30 times higher than those of 7 day-cultured preadipocytes. The results suggest that alginate sponge, which has fixed shape and porosity, is adequate three-dimensional scaffolds for culture of fibroblast and preadipocyte. In addition, preadipocytes could be well proliferated and differentiated into adipocyte in the alginate sponge.