Age-associated changes in the transcriptomes of noncultured adipose-derived stem cells from young and old mice

Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) exhibit self-renewal and pluripotency. The differentiation potency of ASCs has been reported to deteriorate with aging; however, the relevant studies used ASCs that were isolated and subcultured several times. It is still unclear whether subcultured ASCs accurately reflect the in vivo state. To address this question, we used freshly isolated stromal vascular fractions (SVFs) and performed comprehensive single-cell transcriptome analysis. In this study, we identified three cell populations as putative ASC candidates in SVFs and three novel ASC-related genes, Adamts7, Snai2, and Tgfbr1, which are reported to be negative regulators of cell differentiation. Moreover, we identified age-associated high gene expression levels of Adamts7, Egfr, and Igfbp4 in the earliest differentiation stage of ASCs by pseudotime analysis. These results suggested that aging may make it impossible to maintain the stringency of the regulation of the expression of some genes related to the differentiation of ASCs.