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Revealed: the fatty cells that are the ‘bubble wrap’ of the body

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2025-01-11 17:00:06

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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.

These ‘lipocartilage’ cells — which are found in many mammals and have been grown from human stem cells— are fully described for the first time in a study published today in Science. The discovery of a new cell type “doesn’t happen often”, says Markéta Kaucká, an evolutionary-developmental biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, who wasn’t involved with the study. “This finding is really striking.”

Lipocartilage cells have been hiding in plain sight for more than 160 years. In 1857, a German zoologist named Franz von Leydig reported that the cartilage tissue in a rat’s ear contains large cells that are filled with depots of lipids — a description that also applies to fat cells. But classic cartilage cells, called chondrocytes, are smaller than fat cells and lack a lipid depot. They churn out molecules that combine into a stiff latticework called the extracellular matrix, which provides structure and support to the cartilage tissue.