Osteogenic and adipogenic potential of porcine adipose mesenchymal stem cells

Human, rat, and mouse studies have demonstrated the existence of a population of adipose mesenchymal stem cells (AMSCs) that can undergo multilineage differentiation in vitro. Understanding the clinical potential of AMSCs may require their use in preclinical large-animal models such as pigs. Thus, the objectives of this study were to establish a protocol for the isolation of porcine AMSCs from adipose tissue and to examine their ex vivo differentiation potential to adipocytes and osteoblast. The porcine AMSCs from passage 4 were selected for differentiation analysis. The adipocytes were identified morphologically by staining with Oil Red O, and the adipogenic marker genes were examined by RT-PCR technique. Osteogenic lineage was documented by deposition of calcium stained with Alzarin Red S, visualization of alkaline phosphatase activity, and expression of marker gene. Our result indicates that porcine AMSCs have been successfully isolated and induced differentiation into adipocytes and osteoblasts. This study suggested that porcine AMSCs are also a valuable model system for the study on the mesenchymal lineages for basic research and tissue engineering.