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. 2022 May 18;10(5):1163. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines10051163

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Schematic representation of the experimental set-up. Liposuction material of 4 healthy and 5 lipedema-affected subjects was used to isolate the stromal vascular fraction (SVF). (a) For fluorescence imaging of endothelial junctions, the SVF-contained endothelial cells (EC) of healthy and lipedema adipose tissue (AT) and human primary ECs (hEC) treated with conditioned media (CM) of healthy and lipedema SVF cells were stained for CD31 and ZO-1. After the treatment with CM, hECs were analyzed for endothelial permeability by a transwell assay and for gene expression of endothelial markers by quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qPCR). The CM of healthy individuals and lipedema patients were screened for protein secretion of inflammation and angiogenesis markers. (b) Samples of AT were collected from liposuction material of the thigh region of healthy and the thigh and abdominal regions of lipedema-affected subjects. CD31+ EC and CD45− CD31− CD146+ pericytes (PC) were isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) of SVF. To achieve an adipose-derived stromal/stem cell (ASC) culture, SVF was cultivated for two passages. RNA was isolated from AT, SVF, EC, PC and ASC for gene expression analysis by qPCR.