Genetic Engineering of Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Its Application in Human Disease Therapy

Abstract

The use of stem cells for tissue regeneration and repair is advancing both at the bench and bedside. Stem cells isolated from bone marrow are currently being tested for their therapeutic potential in a variety of clinical conditions including cardiovascular injury, kidney failure, cancer, and neurological and bone disorders. Despite the advantages, stem cell therapy is still limited by low survival, engraftment, and homing to damage area as well as inefficiencies in differentiating into fully functional tissues. Genetic engineering of mesenchymal stem cells is being explored as a means to circumvent some of these problems. This review presents the current understanding of the use of genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells in human disease therapy with emphasis on genetic modifications aimed to improve survival, homing, angiogenesis, and heart function after myocardial infarction. Advancements in other disease areas are also discussed.

Overexpression of hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α in human mesenchymal stem cells suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma development through Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway downregulation

“…15 MSCs are successfully engrafted into tissues under conditions of increased cell turnover triggered by tissue damage or neoplastic growth. They have the ability to efficiently target sites of tissue injury including tumor environments.…”

Transplantation of umbilical cord–derived mesenchymal stem cells as a novel strategy to protect the central nervous system: technical aspects, preclinical studies, and clinical perspectives

“…Neuroprotection and hUC-MSCs agents (81,82). This has been achieved using viral and nonviral methods, mainly with MSCs isolated from adult tissues.…”

Fetal Liver-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell Engraftment After Allogeneic In Utero Transplantation into Rabbits

“…Thus, the therapeutic possibilities intrinsic to the fl-MSCs may support fetal tissue regeneration or dampen chronic inflammation. Furthermore, their proper genetic engineering using safe vectors capable of yielding high-level, persistent transgene expression [28,47] + -fl-MSC-transplanted young rabbits were co-cultured with 1 · 10 5 allogeneic fl-MSCs during 5 days in triplicate wells, and cell proliferation was assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (see Materials and Methods for details). White column labels refer to the rabbit identification.…”