Your Own Fat Tissue May Help Repair Damaged Cartilage
Michela Bosetti, Alessia Borrone, Antonia Follenzi, Fanuel Messaggio, Carlo Tremolada, Mario Cannas · Cell Transplantation · 2016
If you have cartilage damage in your joints, you know how limiting it can be. Cartilage has a poor ability to heal itself, which is why researchers are exploring new treatment options. This laboratory study examined whether processed fat tissue from your own body could serve as a natural "scaffold" to help repair cartilage defects.
Lab Study Tests Fat Tissue's Ability to Support Cartilage Repair
Researchers from Italian and American universities conducted laboratory experiments using fat tissue from five healthy women. They wanted to understand if specially processed fat tissue could help cartilage heal without the complex steps required by other treatments. The team compared four different ways of processing the fat tissue, including the Lipogems® method, which washes and breaks the tissue into tiny fragments.
Cells Naturally Move Out of Fat Tissue Toward Damaged Cartilage
One of the most exciting findings was that regenerative cells naturally migrated out of the fat tissue clusters on their own. These outgrowing cells showed characteristics of mesenchymal stem cells (regenerative cells that can become various tissue types). When researchers placed the fat tissue near damaged cartilage samples in the lab, they observed these cells moving toward and repopulating the injured cartilage. This suggests the processed fat tissue could act as a delivery system for healing cells.
Fat Tissue Appears to "Wake Up" Existing Cartilage Cells
The study found that fat tissue may help cartilage repair in another important way. When placed near cartilage cells, the fat tissue appeared to have a "paracrine effect." This means it released natural signals that:
Encouraged existing cartilage cells to multiply
Stimulated these cells to produce more extracellular matrix (the supportive material that gives cartilage its structure)
This is significant because it suggests the treatment doesn't just deliver new cells—it may also activate your body's own cartilage cells to work harder at repair.
Processed Fat Transforms Into Stronger Supportive Tissue
After three weeks of treatment with growth factors that promote cartilage formation, the researchers observed something remarkable. The fat tissue clusters changed their structure significantly. Tissue that started with a high fat content transformed into tissue with:
Less fat and more connective tissue
Higher levels of GAG (glycosaminoglycans), which are essential building blocks of cartilage
More type I collagen, which provides structural strength
This transformation resulted in increased mechanical strength, meaning the tissue could potentially provide better support for damaged joints under load.
Three Ways This Approach May Help Your Joints
Based on their laboratory findings, the researchers proposed that injecting processed fat tissue into a joint could help in three distinct ways. First, it may transform into fibrous tissue that provides mechanical support for the load on damaged cartilage. Second, it may encourage your existing cartilage cells to multiply and produce new matrix. Third, it may deliver regenerative cells directly to the injury site, where they could help repair or regenerate the damaged tissue.
What This Means for Patients Considering Treatment
This was a laboratory study, not a clinical trial in patients. However, the findings are encouraging because they suggest a simpler approach to cartilage repair. Unlike some treatments that require harvesting cartilage cells, growing them in a lab for weeks, and then reimplanting them, this approach uses minimally processed fat tissue in a single procedure.
Fat tissue offers several advantages as a source of regenerative cells. It contains up to two percent mesenchymal stem cells, compared to only 0.02 percent in bone marrow. It can be obtained in large quantities through minimally invasive procedures. And because it comes from your own body, there's no risk of rejection.
While more research—including human clinical trials—is needed to confirm these laboratory findings, this study adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the use of processed fat tissue for joint repair. If you're considering Lipogems® treatment for cartilage problems, discuss this research with your healthcare provider to understand how it might apply to your specific situation.
Source: Bosetti et al., Cell Transplantation, 2016.
Original Publication
Human Lipoaspirate as Autologous Injectable Active Scaffold for One-Step Repair of Cartilage Defects
Michela Bosetti, Alessia Borrone, Antonia Follenzi, Fanuel Messaggio, Carlo Tremolada, Mario Cannas · Cell Transplantation · 2016
Human lipoaspirate as autologous injectable active scaffold for one-step repair of cartilage defects Research on mesenchymal stem cells from adipose tissue shows promising results for cell-based therapy in cartilage lesions. In these studies, cells have been isolated, expanded, and differentiated in vitro before transplantation into the damaged cartilage or onto materials used as scaffolds to deliver cells to the impaired area. The present study employed in vitro assays to investigate the potential of intra-articular injection of microfragmented lipoaspirate as a one-step repair strategy; it aimed to determine whether adipose tissue can act as a scaffold for cells naturally present at their anatomical site. Cultured clusters of lipoaspirate showed a spontaneous outgrowth of cells with a mesenchymal phenotype and with multilineage differentiation potential. Transduction of lipoaspirate clusters by lentiviral vectors expressing GFP evidenced the propensity of the outgrown cells to repopulate fragments of damaged cartilage. On the basis of the results, which showed an induction of proliferation and ECM production of human primary chondrocytes, it was hypothesized that lipoaspirate may play a paracrine role. Moreover, the structure of a floating culture of lipoaspirate, treated for 3 weeks with chondrogenic growth factors, changed: tissue with a high fat component was replaced by a tissue with a lower fat component and connective tissue rich in GAG and in collagen type I, increasing the mechanical strength of the tissue. From these promising in vitro results, it may be speculated that an injectable autologous biologically active scaffold (lipoaspirate), employed intra-articularly, may 1) become a fibrous tissue that provides mechanical support for the load on the damaged cartilage; 2) induce host chondrocytes to proliferate and produce ECM; and 3) provide cells at the site of injury, which could regenerate or repair the damaged or missing cartilage.