The frequency of proliferative stromal cells in adipose tissue varies between inbred mouse strains.

Stromal cells derived from adipose tissue (ASCs) can proliferate as undifferentiated cells with a fibroblast-like morphology in cell culture, or can be induced to differentiate into a variety of cell types including, adipipogenic, myogenic, neurogenic, osteogenic, chondrogenic and hepatic cells. There is increasing interest to understand the factors controlling the proliferation of ASCs since these cells might provide a readily available source of autologous stem/progenitor cells for cell therapy applications. To explore potential genetic factors that modify the properties of ASCs, we tried to identify relevant properties of ASCs that differ between inbred mouse strains. Plating cells in a modified colony forming assay indicates that the percentage of high proliferative cells among ASCs differs more than 2-fold between 129x1/svj and C57Bl/6J mice. The identification of genetic factors affecting the proliferative capacity of stem cell populations could improve the efficacy of cell therapy.