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Review
. 2023 Mar 6;13(3):717.
doi: 10.3390/life13030717.

Obesity and Wound Healing: Focus on Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Antonio Alma  1 , Guya Diletta Marconi  2 , Elena Rossi  1 , Cristina Magnoni  1 , Alessia Paganelli  3
Affiliations
Review

Obesity and Wound Healing: Focus on Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Antonio Alma et al. Life (Basel). .

Abstract

Chronic wounds represent nowadays a major challenge for both clinicians and researchers in the regenerative setting. Obesity represents one of the major comorbidities in patients affected by chronic ulcers and therefore diverse studies aimed at assessing possible links between these two morbid conditions are currently ongoing. In particular, adipose tissue has recently been described as having metabolic and endocrine functions rather than serving as a mere fat storage deposit. In this setting, adipose-derived stem cells, a peculiar subset of mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) located in adipose tissue, have been demonstrated to possess regenerative and immunological functions with a key role in regulating both adipocyte function and skin regeneration. The aim of the present review is to give an overview of the most recent findings on wound healing, with a special focus on adipose tissue biology and obesity.

Keywords: MSC; adipose tissue; cytokine; diabetes; leptin; obesity; skin; stem cell; ulcer; wound healing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Obesity-associated alterations: (1) venous insufficiency, (2) atherosclerosis, (3) pro-inflammatory MSC phenotype, (4) adipocyte hypertrophy, (5) glucose intolerance and/or diabetes, (6–8) chronic ulcers. Created with BioRender.com.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of the wound healing process. While the wound heals and the injured area (in red) reduces, gradually leading to a scar, the four phases take place (from upper to lower panel): hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation and remodeling. The main cell types are indicated on the right and include: red blood cells and platelets (1), leucocytes and professional phagocytes (2), keratinocytes (3), endothelial cells (3), MSCs (3) and fibroblasts (3,4). Created with BioRender.com.
Figure 3
Figure 3
MSCs and obesity. Schematic representation of how the pro-inflammatory milieu found in obese subjects determines MSC impairment, with subsequent pro-inflammatory cytokine production, cell senescence and reduced proliferative ability. Such changes could be at least partially responsible for impaired wound healing and, subsequently, the occurrence of chronic wounds in obese subjects. Image created with BioRender.com.
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