The Effects of Lipocartilage on Steady Reconstructive Tissues: A Case Study in Nessology

The large fat in lipocartilage cells make the cartilage tissue softer and less stiff. The Chondrocytes create an extracellular matrix similar to packing foam, which consists of small hard walled voids. It’s similar to bubble wrap in that it uses large, air-filled pockets.

Cartilage transplant procedures can be used to fix cleft palates, correct missing ears and repair damage caused by cancer. They are also usually used in nose augmentations.

But the results aren’t always stellar. It’s rare for surgeons to use silicone implants since they’ve either stiff or not matching the real thing. Implanted tissues are not flexible in the same way as those they’re implanted into, and don’t become part of the natively occurring tissue. “They often do not integrate, and they move around,” says Maksim Plikus, a cell biologist at UC Irvine. The nose needs another revision.

The Fat Cells of the Ear and Nasal Neural Networks are Stretchy and Squishy, Just Like the Chondrocytes

The cells don’t have the same signaling proteins as fat cells, and that their patterns of gene activation look a lot like those of chondrocytes. The researchers found that fat cells remained the same size when fed a high-fat diet in mice, whereas fat cells would shrink or swell if fed a low-fat diet. The idea that fat cells don’t have a functioning metabolism was suggested by that.

The ear and the nose are squishy and stretchy thanks in part to ‘bubble wrap’ cells that provide extra cushioning and structural support to various body parts, a wide-ranging study1 shows.

“The idea that you regulate stiffness of tissue by controlling what’s inside the cell rather than through the extracellular matrix is new and interesting,” says Paul Janmey, a biophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. “That’s not typically the case, even in fat tissue.”