Harvesting and Collection of Adipose Tissue for the Isolation of Adipose-Derived Stromal/Stem Cells

Over the last two decades, adipose tissue has become an important source of stromal/stem cells in the rapidly expanding field of regenerative medicine. With an increase in diseases of lifestyle such as obesity and the consequent increase in liposuction procedures, material that is usually discarded can be utilized for clinical purposes. Although liposuction techniques have become very refined from the patient’s perspective, not all of them are necessarily optimal for adipose stromal/stem cell (ASC) harvesting. There is therefore a need to define an optimal harvesting technique. In this chapter, we provide an overview on the effect of anatomical donor site, patient’s age and gender, harvesting techniques, and other influencing factors during isolation and culturing of ASCs that could play a role in ASC yield, stemness, plasticity, and genetic profile. This overview will be concluded by proposing a harvesting technique which can be used to produce ASCs for clinical tissue engineering applications.