Much of the current understanding on molecular and cellular events of adipose developmental biology comes from monolayer cell culture models using preadipocyte cell lines, although in vivo adipose tissue consists of a much more complex three-dimensional microenvironment of diverse cell types, extracellular network, and tissue-specific morphological and functional features. Added to this fact, the preadipocytes, on which the adipogenesis mechanisms are mostly explored, possess some serious limitations (e.g., time of initial subculture and adipogenic differentiation time), which, perhaps, can efficiently be replaced with progenitor cells such as adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs). With the objective of developing a better in vitro model for adipose developmental biology, this project involves gene expression profiling of human ASCs (hASCs) during their differentiation to adipocytes in a 2D versus 3D culture model. This transcriptional-level analysis revealed that gene expression patterns of adipogenesis-induced hASCs in a 3D self-assembled polypeptide hydrogel are relatively different from the 2D monolayered cells on plastic hard substrate. Moreover, analysis of adipogenic lineage progression 9 days after adipogenic induction shows earlier differentiation of hASCs in 2D over their 3D counterparts. However, differentiation in 2D shows some unexpected behavior in terms of gene expression, which does not seem to be related to adipogenic lineage specification. Since hASCs are already being used in clinical trials due to their therapeutic potential, it is important to have a clear understanding of the molecular mechanisms in an in vivo model microenvironment like the one presented here.

中文翻译：

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2D 与 3D 脂肪生成过程中人类脂肪组织干细胞的基因表达谱

目前对脂肪发育生物学的分子和细胞事件的大部分理解来自使用前脂肪细胞系的单层细胞培养模型，尽管体内脂肪组织由更复杂的不同细胞类型、细胞外网络和组织的三维微环境组成-特定的形态和功能特征。除此之外，脂肪形成机制主要被探索的前脂肪细胞具有一些严重的局限性（例如，初始传代时间和脂肪形成分化时间），也许可以有效地被祖细胞（如脂肪组织）替代。衍生干细胞 (ASC)。为了开发更好的脂肪发育生物学体外模型，该项目涉及人类 ASC (hASC) 在 2D 与 3D 培养模型中分化为脂肪细胞期间的基因表达谱。这种转录水平分析表明，3D 自组装多肽水凝胶中脂肪生成诱导的 hASCs 的基因表达模式与塑料硬基质上的 2D 单层细胞相对不同。此外，在成脂诱导后 9 天对成脂谱系进展的分析表明，2D 中的 hASC 比 3D 中的 hASC 分化更早。然而，二维分化在基因表达方面表现出一些意想不到的行为，这似乎与脂肪形成谱系规范无关。由于 hASCs 由于其治疗潜力已被用于临床试验，