ABSTRACT
Microscope is one of the most fundamental and versatile tools of the biologist used in its various adaptations, ranging from the simple light microscope to the advanced electron microscope. Microscopy enables to elicit details of anatomical structures at cellular and subcellular levels to understand the cell/ tissue architecture better and hence, an appropriate evaluation tool for tissueengineered living constructs. Tissue engineering (TE) is defined logically as an approach to develop “biological substitutes to restore, maintain, or improve functions” of a normal or pathological tissue or organ. The triad in tissue
engineering includes-cells, a structural support or a scaffold and the micro environmental cues provided for the fabricated/developed living construct. Herein, an attempt is made to demonstrate adipogenesis (the genesis of fat tissue) using adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) on two distinct scaffoldsbioceramic and collagen, with microscopy as the premier evaluation tool. This work aims to reconstruct soft tissue voids and deformities caused by tumors, congenital defects, or trauma using ASCs seeded on ceramic (hard) and collagen (soft) scaffolds, and inducing them toward the adipogenic lineage with special induction cocktails to ultimately achieve adipogenic differentiation. For this, various microscopic techniques were successfully relied upon to achieve the abovementioned objectives in this work.
