Comparable effect of adipose-derived stromal vascular fraction and mesenchymal stem cells for wound healing: An in vivo study

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Introduction: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been known to have angiogenic potency, particularly for wound healing. However, it is such a cumbersome procedure to obtain a large amount of MSCs due to the culture process. The stromal vascular fraction (SVF), or so called nonexpanded MSCs, of adipose tissue is gaining increased interest in the field of cell therapy. An optimized method that takes only 2 hours to produce a large amount of stromal cells from adipose tissue has been developed. Burn wound model was used to assess the efficacy of SVF produced by our method. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of SVF compared to MSCs. Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats with second degree burn wound were divided into the study groups: SVF, MSCs and saline control. The wound was photographed and evaluated weekly up to 5 weeks. The comparative analysis consisted of healing time, histology of skin tissue, as well as rat and human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression. Results: In this study, wounds treated with SVF and MSCs were smaller after 14-21 days, compared to the untreated group. Expression of rat VEGF in SVF and MSC- treated groups after seven days post-wounded were also higher than the untreated group. No human VEGF was found expressed in the skin biopsies. Conclusion: This suggests that SVF and MSCs promote wound healing via a paracrine effect. The results suggest that SVF may be useful for wound healing and may be used as a promising alternative to MSC-based therapy.