Mesenchymal Stem Cells as Targeted Cell Vehicles to Deliver Drug-loaded Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy

Abstract

Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) have been gaining importance recently due to their multiple benefits in cancer therapy in addition to their advantages in other research fields such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Results from several in vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the ability to home to tumor tissues. The tumor-tropic and migratory properties have made MSCs attractive to be engineered to express anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic, and anti-angiogenic reagents for the treatment of localized and metastatic tumors [1-6]. Indeed, over the past few years, MSCs have been investigated and successfully used as gene therapy vehicles for cancer treatments [5]. This success suggests that MSCs could also serve as targeted carriers to deliver therapeutic agents including chemotherapy compounds to treat cancers. Since low targeting efficiencies and short half-lives of several cancer drugs are the major limitations for cancer therapy, using MSCs to carry and deliver drug loaded nanoparticles to cancer cells specifically might overcome these limitations. Compared to other vehicles and/or delivery platforms as therapeutic carriers, MSCs might have more advantages. First, tumortropic properties would make MSCs accumulate specifically at the tumor site for better delivery of therapeutic reagents if using them as carriers. Beside tumor homing, one major advantage of MSCs is their ability to modulate the responses of the immune system or to have hypo immunogenic properties. These properties will help in increasing MSC survival after transplantation. Another major advantage of using these cells as vehicles to carry therapeutic reagents is that the potential use of autologous stem cells faces no issue with the immune responses and would increase cell survival after transplantation, leading to more effective delivery. It is also easy to obtain MSCs as they are present in many sources such as brain, liver, kidneys, pancreas, lungs, bone marrow, muscle, thymus, skin, adipose tissues, and umbilical cords. These advantages suggest that MSCs can be efficiently used as vehicles to carry and deliver therapeutic reagents for cancer therapy. Recently,