The emergence of amnion epithelial stem cells for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Whilst a number of immune modulatory agents are available to treat the disease, their efficacy is relatively low, but more problematically, is the fact that they are associated with significant side effects. Most compellingly is that whilst these drugs slow the disease progression, they are not curative. Therefore there is an urgent need for the development of new therapies that have fewer side effects and treat a larger proportion of patients. One such potential therapy is the use of stem cells. A number of different stem cell types have been shown to be efficacious in murine models of MS, thus paving the way for their potential application to the clinic. A novel stem cell source that is gaining attention is amnion epithelial cells (AECs). These cells have been shown to engraft, suppress immune responses, migrate to inflamed sites within the CNS and differentiate towards neural lineages. Given their immune suppressive and neuroregenerative potential, AECs are therefore attractive vehicles for the therapy of MS and other inflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders that effect the CNS.