Adipose stems cells used for bladder smooth muscle

Autologous adipose stem cells lend themselves well to the engineering of bladder smooth muscle and may eventually make the use of gastrointestinal tissue for this purpose obsolete, say the authors of an animal study from UCLA. The group reports that it has shown, for the first time, that adipose stem cells can be differentiated into functional smooth muscle.

"The advantage of using stem cells is that they are pluripotent and capable of forming multiple tissue types, including smooth muscle," said Larissa V. Rodríguez, MD. "The particular advantage of using adipose stem cells is that it makes this an autologous model, and therefore there is no need for immunosuppression."

The researchers processed adipose stem cells (ASCs) from human lipospirate. ASCs were then differentiated into smooth muscle phenotype (SM-ASCs) using smooth muscle-inductive cultured media.

A group of 45 female nude rats underwent laparotomy, removal of bladder dome, and repair using partial cystectomy, unseeded scaffold, or scaffold seeded with SM-ASCs. Follow-up over 12 weeks showed that tissue-engineered rats maintained smooth muscle mRNA and protein in vitro, along with bladder capacity and compliance at all follow-up points in vivo. Animals given unseeded scaffold, meanwhile, lost capacity over time and experienced poor compliance. Lower bladder volume was also seen in the cystectomy group.