Adipose derived stem cells to target osteoarthritis: Basic science and clinical applications

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common and debilitating disease. It is accompanied by pain and a progressive loss of mobility. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were shown to be a potential treatment option for OA. Their mode of action is subject of current research. MSCs’ paracrine factors – such as growth factors and exosomes – play a key role in altering the diseased joint homeostasis in a beneficial way. A traditional MSC source tissue was bone marrow aspirate. Recently, adipose tissue has become an alternative MSC source due to a variety of advantages such as a lower harvest morbidity and the abundance of the tissue. MSCs derived from the infra-patellar fat pad were shown to possess superior conditions compared to other adipose sources. Blood product supplementation was shown to further enhance MSCs viability. We conducted a mini-review about adipose-derived MSCs in OA treatment with regards to basic science, status of translation and current clinical applications. Promising data – both from clinical trials as well as from basic research – support beneficial effects of adipose derived MSCs in OA. However, at the moment general recommendations cannot be given due to a lack of high-quality clinical data warranting further research in the field.