Methods to isolate adipose tissue-derived stem cells

The use of adipose tissue has seen increasing interest in recent years for treating plastic surgery defects and for regenerative medicine applications. Adipose tissue is considered an optimal source of stem cells, as it contains more multipotent cells than bone marrow for the same volume. The adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs), isolated from the heterogeneous stromal vascular fraction (SVF), possess self-renewal properties and multilineage differentiation potential. In addition, adipose tissue can be obtained with less invasive procedures and patient morbidity than other tissue. For these reasons, numerous enzymatic, and non-enzymatic isolation methods have been developed over the years. The traditional method for isolation and culture of primary ADSCs from adipose tissue relies on enzymatic digestion with collagenase, followed by multiple steps of centrifugation. Alternative non-enzymatic isolation methods are based closed, sterile, and safe isolation processes that differ from each other for parameters such as the centrifugation force, pressure, filtration, and washing. Despite the existence of this multitude of systems, the best isolation method has not been identified to date. Therefore, the great challenge remains the achievement of the standardization of cellular products to allow the comparability between clinical studies and trials.