Research Article The Effect of Age on Osteogenic and Adipogenic Differentiation Potential of Human Adipose Derived Stromal Stem Cells (hASCs) and the Impact of Stress Factors in the Course of the Differentiation Process Katarzyna Kornicka, 1 Krzysztof Marycz, 1,2 Krzysztof Andrzej Tomaszewski, 3 Monika Marwdziak, 2,4 and Agnieszka Umieszek 1,2 1 Electron Microscopy Laboratory, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, 50-631 Wroclaw, Poland 2 Wroclaw Research Centre EIT+, 54-066 Wroclaw, Poland 3 Department of Anatomy, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-034 Krakow, Poland 4 Department of Animal Physiology and Biostructure, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, 50-375 Wroclaw, Poland Correspondence should be addressed to Krzysztof Marycz; krzysztofmarycz@interia.pl Received 8 March 2015; Revised 2 June 2015; Accepted 18 June 2015 Academic Editor: Peter Backx Copyright © 2015 Katarzyna Kornicka et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Human adipose tissue is a great source of autologous mesenchymal stem cells (hASCs), which are recognized for their vast therapeutic applications. heir ability to self-renew and diferentiate into several lineages makes them a promising tool for cell- based therapies in diferent types of degenerative diseases. hus it is crucial to evaluate age-related changes in hASCs, as the elderly are a group that will beneit most from their considerable potential. In this study we investigated the efect of donor age on growth kinetics, cellular senescence marker levels, and osteogenic and adipogenic potential of hASCs. It also has been known that, during life, organisms accumulate oxidative damage that negatively afects cell metabolism. Taking this into consideration, we evaluated the levels of nitric oxide, reactive oxygen species, and superoxide dismutase activity. We observed that ROS and NO increase with aging, while SOD activity is signiicantly reduced. Moreover cells obtained from older patients displayed senescence associated features, for example, -galactosidase activity, enlarged morphology, and p53 protein upregulation. All of those characteristics seem to contribute to decreased proliferation potential of those cells. Our results suggest that due to aging some cellular modiication may be required before applying aged cells eiciently in therapies such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. 1. Introduction One of the currently fastest developing ields of medical science is regenerative medicine. his results from the need for advanced treatment options for many diseases, which are becoming more frequent due to the aging of society. he main target populations that may most beneit from advances in regenerative medicine are elderly patients. In recent years, many basic researchers as well as clinical groups showed the positive efect of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as therapeutic agents, both in vivo and in vitro [1, 2]. MSCs, in general, are characterized as a source of cells that possess a unique proliferative potential, the ability to self-renew, and can also diferentiate in vitro into multiple lineages [3–5]. Besides proliferative and diferentiation potential, MSCs are well known for their immunomodulatory and immunosup- pressive properties, which make them an even more promis- ing tool in regenerative medicine [6]. In a wide range of ani- mal model studies [7], it has been demonstrated that MSCs can be successfully applied in regeneration of musculoskeletal Hindawi Publishing Corporation Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity Volume 2015, Article ID 309169, 20 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/309169