Abstract
Early cell biology reports demonstrated the presence of cells with stem-like properties in bone marrow, with both hematopoietic and mesenchymal lineages. Over the years, various investigations have purified and characterized mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) from different human tissues as cells with multilineage differentiation potential under the appropriate conditions. Due to their appealing characteristics and versatile potentials, MSCs are leveraged in many applications in medicine such as oncology, bioprinting, and as recent as therapeutics discovery and innovation for COVID-19. To date, studies indicate that MSCs have varied differentiation capabilities into different cell types, and demonstrate immunomodulating and anti-inflammatory properties. Different microenvironments or niche for MSCs and their resulting heterogeneity may influence attendant cellular behavior and differentiation capacity. The potential clinical applications of MSCs and exosomes derived from these cells have led to an avalanche of research reports on their properties and hundreds of clinical trials being undertaken. There is ample reason to think, as discussed in this expert review that the future looks bright and promising for MSC research, with many clinical trials under way to ascertain their clinical utility. This review provides a synthesis of the latest advances and trends in MSC research to allow for broad and critically informed use of MSCs. Early observations of the presence of these cells in the bone marrow and their remarkable differentiation capabilities and immunomodulation are also presented.
Highlights
Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal cells: What’s in a Name?Early reports indicated that the bone marrow contained both haematopoietic stem cells as well as mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) [1, 2]
Reports indicated that the bone marrow contained both haematopoietic stem cells as well as mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) [1, 2]
As we demonstrated in our earlier report in addition to other reports, MSCs can differentiate into adipocytes, chondroblasts and osteoblasts as well as lacking CD14, CD34 and CD45 expression [9, 16]
Summary
Reports indicated that the bone marrow contained both haematopoietic stem cells as well as mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) [1, 2]. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the ability to grow in vitro, display enhanced differentiation capabilities to form the connective tissues present in different organs compared to other cells and release large amounts of biomolecules such as growth factors and cytokines [4, 5]. Several other studies including one by Feng and colleagues demonstrated that cells that do not express CD146 but can differentiate into pericytes for example are able to meet the minimum criteria for MSCs [46,47,48]. The authors showed that bone marrow- and adipose tissue-derived MSCs displayed similar differentiation capacities as well as gene expression. The authors demonstrated that umbilical cord blood MSCs showed no adipogenic differentiation abilities compared to those from the bone marrow and adipose tissue [97]. MSCs have been shown to inhibit the synthesis of several immunoglobulins by activated B cells and in the process prevents formation of plasma cells [153,154,155]
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