Abstract
BACKGROUND
Nanofat is an injectable oily emulsion, rich in adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) and growth factors. It is prepared from lipoaspirates through mechanical emulsification and filtration. Despite being successfully used in several procedures in regenerative medicine such as scar attenuation, skin rejuvenation and treatment of chronic wounds, little is known about exactly how nanofat induces regeneration in treated skin at the molecular level.
METHODS
Microfat and nanofat samples were isolated from 18 healthy patients. Proteomic profiling was performed through untargeted mass spectrometry proteomics and multiplex antibody arrays. Pathway enrichment analysis of differentially expressed proteins between microfat and nanofat was performed using Gene Ontology, Reactome and KEGG as reference databases.
RESULTS
Untargeted proteomics showed that upregulated genes in nanofat are involved in innate immunity responses, coagulation and wound healing, while downregulated genes were linked to cellular migration and extracellular matrix (ECM) production. Secretome array screening of microfat and nanofat samples showed no significantly different expression, which strongly suggests that the mechanical emulsification step does not affect the concentration of tissue regeneration biomarkers. The identified proteins are involved in wound healing, cellular migration, extracellular matrix remodelling, angiogenesis, stress response and immune response.
CONCLUSIONS
Mechanical processing of lipoaspirates into nanofat significantly influences the proteome profile by enhancing inflammation, antimicrobial and wound healing pathways. Nanofat is extremely rich in tissue repair and tissue remodelling factors.
CLINICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT
This study shows that the effects of Micro- and Nanofat treatment are based on upregulated inflammation, antimicrobial and wound healing pathways. Mechanical emulsification does not alter the concentration of tissue regeneration biomarkers.
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