gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Autologous fat transplantation is frequently performed in plastic surgery and many attempts have been made to improve the grafting techniques in order to enhance the postoperative fat tissue viability. Though, surprisingly little is known of the immediate fate of the adipocytes after non-vascularized transplantation. In our study we analysed the size and morphology of adipocytes after autologous fat transplantation.

Methods: In a murine model inguinal fat was autologously transplanted into a dorsal skinfold chamber. Prior to implantation transplants were either treated with leptin in two different concentrations or incubated in saline and engrafted into the dorsal skinfold chamber. At 6 different postoperative days adipocytes’ morphology and size was assessed.

Results: Mean adipocytes’ size of the two leptin groups was higher right after transplantation than the size of the adipocytes incubated in saline. Adipocytes of all groups showed a decrease in size till day 7, then their size increased. Surprisingly, only the adipocytes of the saline group doubled in size from day 7 till 10, whereas adipocytes of the leptin groups increased their size just slightly. Simultaneously morphology of adipocytes changed from polygonal to round shapes in all three groups starting from day 7.

Discussion: In the early phase after transplantation adipocytes show a decrease in size around day 7. Adipocytes treated with the leptin were bigger after incubation when compared to saline treated adipocytes and decreased more in size than saline treated adipocytes. This goes in line with findings of Yoshimura et al. who presented in their study, that transplanted fat tissue is remodelled after transplantation and that after 3 months the original adipocytes are replaced by smaller adipocytes (Yoshimura et al. 2011). Our findings may suggest, that the replacement of the transplanted adipocytes by smaller adipocytes is accelerated through leptin addition.