OBJECTIVETo isolate human adipose tissue-derived stromal cells and study the potential of osteogenic differentiation after inductive culture.

METHODSLiposuction human adipose tissues were minced and digested with collagenase type I. The obtained stromal cells were plated in BGJb medium as primary culture for ten days. The second passage cells were harvested and plated in DMEM/F12 medium supplemented with 10% FBS, 5% horse serum and 50 micromol/L hydrocortisone for myogenic induction culture. The cell-anchored slips were removed and fixed in 4% formaldehydam polymerisatum. Toluidine blue, Mallory's phosphotungstic hematoxylin staining and monoclonal antibody to human skeletal muscle myosin heavy chain immunocytochemical methods were used to assay the differentiation of cells.

RESULTSIt was observed that the size and shape of induced cells were much different from those of non-induced cells. Toluidine blue, Mallory's phosphotungstic hematoxylin staining demonstrated there were many basophilic striations within cytoplasm and multinucleated myotubes were formed. Immunocytochemical stain indicated that characterastic skeletal myosin heavy chain was positive in myogenic induced cells.

CONCLUSIONIt seems that human adipose tissue represents an abundant reservoir of adult stem cells that have multi-germline potential to differentiate into myoblasts. Adipose tissue derived stromal cells will be another alternative source for cell-based tissue engineering in skeletal muscle reconstruction.