gms | German Medical Science

Einleitung: To address apoptosis of fat cells by administerimg erythropoietin (EPO) is quite a new approach in adipose tissue research. Both apoptosis on the one hand, and angiogenesis on the other, have a major impact on adipocyte survival. It was demonstrated that EPO treatment increases the expression of angiogenic factors and reduces apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner in human fat grafts transplanted in an athymic mouse model. The aim of the presented study is to evaluate if single shot treatment with EPO of rat inguinal fat flaps directly after explantation will reduce apoptosis in a well proven extracorporeal rat organ perfusion model

Material und Methoden: 1000 IE Epo was injected into the inguinal fat flap of rats directly after explantation via the femoral artery and the flap was placed in the bioreactor. The flaps were continuously perfused in the bioreactor system using Hannover solution for ten days. Immunehistochemistry for caspase 3 and EPO receptor was performed, to find about the apoptotic reation and to find out if there is EPO receptor at all expressed in rat fat tissue.

Ergebnisse: Compared to the results of Hannover solution, as published before, flushing of the fat flaps with EPO did not result in reduced cleaved caspase 3 activity. Analysis of EPO receptor revealed that there was no expression of EPO receptor in the inguinal fat flaps of the rat.

Schlussfolgerung: Flushing of inguinal fat flaps with EPO does not ameliorate apoptotic reaction when preserving them in a permanent perfusion bioreactor model with Hannover solution in comparison to the application of the preservation sulotion alone.. This may be due to the fact that we could not detect EOP receptor in rat adipose tissue. Positive results of other studies might rather be caused by the angiogenetic effect on the reciepient tissue in living aninals in terms of optimisation of the reciepient matrix