Abstract
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are ubiquitously present in many tissues. Due to their unique advantages, MSCs have been widely employed in clinical studies. Emerging evidences indicate that MSCs can also migrate to the tumor surrounding stroma and exert complex effects on tumor growth and progression. However, the effect of MSCs on tumor growth is still a matter of debate. Several studies have shown that MSCs could favor tumor growth. On the contrary, other groups have demonstrated that MSCs suppressed tumor progression. Extracellular vesicles have emerged as a new mechanism of cell-to-cell communication in the development of tumor diseases. MSCs-derived extracellular vesicles (MSC-EVs) could mimic the effects of the mesenchymal stem cells from which they originate. Different studies have reported that MSC-EVs may exert various effects on the growth, metastasis, and drug response of different tumor cells by transferring proteins, messenger RNA, and microRNA to recipient cells. In the present review, we summarize the components of MSC-EVs and discuss the roles of MSC-EVs in different malignant diseases, including the related mechanisms that may account for their therapeutic potential. MSC-EVs open up a promising opportunity in the treatment of cancer with increased efficacy.
Highlights
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can differentiate into various cell types of the mesodermal germ layer
The proproliferative effect on cancer cells was not observed in vitro, and there were no differences in the percentage of cells in the G0/G1, S, and G2/M phases between EV-treated and untreated cells. These findings suggest that MSCderived extracellular vesicles (MSC-EVs) do not directly stimulate proliferation of cancer cells in vitro but instead induce activation of an angiogenesis program that could favor tumor engraftment and growth
MSC-EVs could mimic the effects of mesenchymal stem cells in tumor therapies
Summary
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can differentiate into various cell types of the mesodermal germ layer. MSCs can be recruited to the sites of inflammation and tissue repair [1,2,3,4,5] They possess multiple biological functions including multilineage differentiation, immunosuppression, and tissue-repair promotion [6,7,8]. Due to these unique advantages, MSCs have been widely employed in clinical studies [9,10,11,12,13,14,15], such as spinal cord injuries, cardiovascular diseases, type I diabetes mellitus, hepatic cirrhosis, and Alzheimer’s disease (https://clinicaltrials.gov/).
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