Substantial Overview on Mesenchymal Stem Cell Biological and Physical Properties as an Opportunity in Translational Medicine.

Heba Abdelrazik,Giovanni Barbanti Brodano,Emanuele Giordano,Elena De Falco,Alessandra Pelagalli,Cristiana Griffoni

doi:10.3390/ijms20215386

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) have piqued worldwide interest for their extensive potential to treat a large array of clinical indications, their unique and controversial immunogenic and immune modulatory properties allowing ample discussions and debates for their possible applications. Emerging data demonstrating that the interaction of biomaterials and physical cues with MSC can guide their differentiation into specific cell lineages also provide new interesting insights for further MSC manipulation in different clinical applications. Moreover, recent discoveries of some regulatory molecules and signaling pathways in MSC niche that may regulate cell fate to distinct lineage herald breakthroughs in regenerative medicine. Although the advancement and success in the MSC field had led to an enormous increase in the amount of ongoing clinical trials, we still lack defined clinical therapeutic protocols. This review will explore the exciting opportunities offered by human and animal MSC, describing relevant biological properties of these cells in the light of the novel emerging evidence mentioned above while addressing the limitations and challenges MSC are still facing.

Highlights

Thanks to more than two decades of extensive research, scientific evidence confirms a promising potential for mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based therapeutic strategies
The results of this study showed for the first time that hypoxic preconditioning of vMSCs derived from whole BM aspirate (BMA) can enhance proliferation, morphology, osteogenesis and chondrogenesis, inhibit adipogenesis and up-regulate distinct level of HOX signatures
The worldwide growing interest in Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and their possible utilization in therapy has evolved to studies aimed to deepen the knowledge about MSC physiology, including issues such as their behaviour in response to autocrine and paracrine factors, their survival time, ability to migrate into organs and tissues and their donor-to-donor variability

Summary

Introduction

Thanks to more than two decades of extensive research, scientific evidence confirms a promising potential for mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based therapeutic strategies. CMSC showed higher CFU potential vs hMSC, in addition to the enhanced proliferation capacity of synovium and adipose tissue cMSC [8,10] suggesting that these cells could represent a promising source for canine cartilage regeneration and for their utilization as a clinical model for human medicine. Results obtained from equine umbilical cord blood-derived MSC demonstrating their high proliferative and differentiation capacity towards osteoblasts and chondrocytes, showing a wide possibility of utilization for cartilage tissue engineering and offering an indication of a possible transposition of these therapeutic strategies to human preclinical studies [37]. Intra-articular injection (2 × 106 cells) Increase in repair tissue firmness [47]

MSC-Dependent Immunomodulation and Interaction with the Vicinity

MSC Plasticity in Their Interaction with Physical Cues

Challenges in MSC Translation into Clinical Practice

Findings

Conclusions