AUTHOR=Boemi Ilena , Lisa Andrea Vittorio Emanuele , Vitali Eleonora , Liman Nurçin , Battistini Andrea , Barbera Federico , Maione Luca , Vinci Valeriano , Klinger Marco Ettore Attilio , Lania Andrea Gerardo Antonio TITLE=Evaluation of the ex vivo Effects of Tamoxifen on Adipose-Derived Stem Cells: A Pilot Study JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cell-and-developmental-biology/articles/10.3389/fcell.2021.555248 DOI=10.3389/fcell.2021.555248 ISSN=2296-634X ABSTRACT=

Autologous fat grafting (AFG) is a safe and minimally invasive procedure to correct soft tissue defects. The benefit of AFG is attributed to adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) in fat tissue graft. This technique is useful also in patients undergoing reconstructive surgery following quadrantectomy for breast cancer. However, these patients are frequently treated with tamoxifen. We evaluated the ex vivo effects of tamoxifen on ASCs to understand if cellular functions of ASCs are affected. We selected 24 female patients; 10 of which were breast cancer patients treated with quadrantectomy and tamoxifen. As control group, we selected 14 healthy female subjects (9 premenopausal and 5 menopausal). We found that tamoxifen has no effect on cellular proliferation, VEGF secretion or apoptosis of ASCs. The gene expression assessment demonstrated no impairment in differentiation capacity of ASCs. Our results showed that tamoxifen has no effect on cellular functions of ASCs for the first time in an ex vivo single-center study.