Effects of growth factors and kinase inhibitors on the properties of human adipose-stromal cells in different culture conditions.

The best-fit environments for the proliferation and differentiation of human adipose tissue-derived stromal cells (hADSCs) may require specific media and stimuli. The characteristics of hADSCs cultured in different media might be different. We evaluated the effects of growth factors on the proliferation and differentiation of hADSCs and compared the effects of these growth factors on hADSCs cultured in different serum-contained media. The effects of kinase inhibitors on the proliferation of hADSCs were also examined. The combination of insulin-transferrin-selenium (ITS) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) induced the greatest increase in proliferation, while the combination of ITS and epidermal growth factor (EGF) showed the second-greatest effect in the human serum (HS)-contained media. By contrast, in the fetal bovine serum (FBS)-contained media, ITS had little effect while FGF had better results than the combination of ITS and EGF. The inhibitory potency of the kinase inhibitors was different in the two different media. These results suggest that hADSCs may have different characteristics according to the culture conditions, and that extrapolations of results from animal studies, using FBS media, may not correlate to findings in human studies using HS.