Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Biomaterials: The Perfect Match for Cardiac Repair?

Abstract

Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide with huge socio-economic consequences. Cell therapy, and particularly mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), are considered a promising option to treat this disorder, due to their robust trophic and immunomodulatory properties. However, limitations such as their low rate of engraftment and poor survival after administration into the heart have precluded their large-scale clinical use. Nevertheless, the combination of MSC with polymer-made scaffolds or hydrogels has proven to enhance their retention and, therefore, their efficacy. Additionally, their allogeneic use could permit the creation of ready-to-use cell patches able to improve their feasibility and promote their application in clinical settings. In this review, the experimental and clinical results derived from the use of MSC in cardiac pathology, as well as advances in the bioengineering field to improve the potential of therapeutic cells, are extensively discussed. Additionally, the current understanding of the heart response to the allogeneic MSC transplants is addressed.

Tissue-Engineered Grafts from Human Decellularized Extracellular Matrices: A Systematic Review and Future Perspectives

“…Cell therapy with a variety of stem populations (i.e., cardiac stem/progenitor cells, bone marrow- and adipose tissue-derived stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells) has largely been investigated as a promising regenerative strategy [130]. However, some important limitations such as low rate of engraftment and poor survival of stem/progenitor cells after transplantation have precluded their clinical application [131]. To enhance stem cell regenerative potential, their combination with adequate scaffolds could represent an improved therapeutic approach.…”

“…As it was demonstrated by many clinical cases and animal studies [293], the efficacy of amniotic membrane in promoting soft tissues healing and regeneration is due to its anti-inflammatory and immunological properties as well as to cytoprotective ability [120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149,150,151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,170,171,172,173,174,175,176,177,178,179,180,181,182,183,184,185,186,…”

Nanoparticle technology and stem cell therapy team up against neurodegenerative disorders

“…Moreover, hydrogels allow for culture of neural cells in 3D, which better recapitulates in vivo conditions and has led to the creation of a strong model of Alzheimer's disease [113]. However, bulk hydrogels are too large for efficient drug delivery across the BBB, and are limited to applications of cell transplantation [114–117].…”

Biomaterials-Induced Stem Cells Specific Differentiation Into Intervertebral Disc Lineage Cells

“…The combination of implanted materials and stem cells may provide an effective strategy for these problems. In addition to promoting cell proliferation, migration and ECM production (Illien-Junger et al, 2016a;Perez-Estenaga et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2019), implanted scaffold systems can also direct MSC differentiation into NP-/AF-like cells. An increasing number of engineered materials, including natural scaffolds (Growney Kalaf et al, 2016), synthetic polymers (Helen and Gough, 2008) and their combination , have been applied in IVD repair.…”