Lipedema is a chronic disease characterized by a progressive, bilateral accumulation of subcutaneous adipose tissue. The anatomical localization of the accumulated fat is limited to the lower body and arms, but does not involve the abdomen (considered as a control adipose tissue location for the research analyses in this study). In addition, only women seem to be affected by the disease, which moreover appears during hormonal shifts such as puberty, pregnancy or menopause. These elements lead the scientific community to hypothesize that estrogens and their receptors could be involved in the onset and development of the disease. Furthermore, the white adipose tissues that accumulates in lipedema does not respond to weight loss stimulated by caloric restriction and physical exercise, a major difference from the white adipose tissue of obese patients. The only current treatment for this disorder is thus liposuction. The first objective of this study was to investigate the adipogenic potential of adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs), isolated from patients with lipedema, which represent a major feature in the pathological white subcutaneous adipose tissue of patients with lipedema. However, we did not confirm an increased adipogenic potential of ASCs from lipedematous tissue when compared with the differentiation efficiency of ASCs from control adipose tissue isolated from these patients. The second objective was to analyze the secretomes and proteomes of ASCs isolated from patients suffering from lipedema and, more specifically, to compare the secretome and proteome of ASCs from pathological anatomical regions (thighs) and healthy tissues (abdomen). The analyses of the secretomes revealed an increase in the secretion of 3 proteins (AEBP1, MMP-9 and F13A1), all involved in extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling or inflammation, components that are widely modified in the white adipose tissue of patients with lipedema. These preliminary results therefore enabled us to identify putative players that could be responsible for ECM remodeling and fibrosis in the pathological white adipose tissue of lipedema. The third objective was to characterize the abundance of nuclear estrogen receptors (ERα/ERβ) in ASCs isolated from either lipedematous pathological or healthy adipose tissue. We did not observe any statistically significant difference in the abundance of these receptors between ASCs harvested from healthy or pathological tissue.
Insights into the biology of adipose-derived stem cells isolated from patients with lipedema
MARCHAL, L. (Author). 15 Jan 2024
Student thesis: Master types › Master in biochemistry and molecular and cell biology Research focus