Cell Therapy for the Enhancement of Bone Repair - Engineered Bone: Tissue Engineering Intelligence Unit - page 156

Figure 2. Cartilage and bone formation by human BMSC. The “in vivo” osteogenic potential (A) of BMSC
and their “in vitro” chondrogenic potential (B) is evident in representative fields of histological sections.
An interesting potential source of osteoprogenitor cells is achievable in large quantities,
under local anesthesia, with minimal discomfort. 29,31 Such a population of progenitor cells can
be apparently isolated from human adipose tissue harvested by suction-assisted lipectomy
(liposuction). 60 From this adipocyte-rich fraction, a fibroblast-like population of cells can be
isolated, which can be maintained in vitro for extended periods with stable population dou-
bling and, apparently, low levels of senescence. Immunofluorescence and flow cytometry show
that the majority of these cells are of mesodermal or mesenchymal origin with low levels of
contaminating pericytes, endothelial cells, and smooth muscle cells. Finally, they can differen-
tiate in vitro into adipogenic, chondrogenic, myogenic, and osteogenic cells in the presence of
lineage-specific induction factors. 31
Some, if not all, of the problems raised by solid tissue osteoprogenitor cells could be solved
harvesting cells with similar characteristics from peripheral blood. This of course would be the