Transferring the exudate in the tissue engineering chamber as a trigger to incubate large amount adipose tissue in remote area

Abstract

Tissue engineering chamber (TEC) is a technique that could incubate up to 16 folds volume increase of a fat flap. But the mechanism in the silicone chamber was still unknown. The function of exudate in the chamber was noticed recently. We developed a special model called fluid drainage model (FDM) that consisted of a traditional TEC on the back and paired fat flaps without a chamber in the groins. Then we used a silicon tube to dynamically transfer the exudate from dorsal TEC to one of the paired inguinal fat flap and the other inguinal fat flap with a sham tube was set as control. At Week 4, the volume of drainage group reached 8.7±2.3ml, 576±152% to its original volume whereas the growth ratio of control group was only 130±39%. Similar volume change and histological change were observed within fat flap from TEC model and drainage group. The exudate in the TEC is a heterogeneous cocktail contains cytokines as well as cells. Intriguingly, transferred exudate in the TEC model sustain the ability to incubate large amount of adipose tissue remotely.