Human umbilical cord blood stem cells, myocardial infarction and stroke

Abstract

-Myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke are the first and third leading causes of death in the USA accounting for more than 1 in 3 deaths per annum. Despite interventional and pharmaceutical advances, the number of people diagnosed with heart disease is on the rise. Therefore, new clinical strategies are needed. Cell-based therapy holds great promise for treatment of these diseases and is currently under extensive preclinical as well as clinical trials. The source and types of stem cells for these clinical applications are questions of great interest. Human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) appears to be a logical candidate as a source of cells. hUCB is readily available, and presents little ethical challenges. Stem cells derived from hUCB are multipotent and immunologically naive. Here is a critical literature review of the beneficial effects of hUCB cell therapy in preclinical trials.

Umbilical cord blood banking: an update

“…In addition to hematopoietic stem cells, cord blood contains endothelial cells, mesenchymal stromal cells, T-regulatory cells, dendritic cells, and natural killer cells [44]. These cell types can become an important area to study in medicine allowing for potentially new treatment options for additional diseases or conditions [45] including brain injury [46][47][48], strokes [47,[49][50][51]], Parkinson's [52], Alzheimer's [50,53], Huntington's [54] and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [50,55]. Other diseases in early stages of investigation include liver disorders [56], diabetes [57,58], and myocardial infarction [49,59].…”

“…These cell types can become an important area to study in medicine allowing for potentially new treatment options for additional diseases or conditions [45] including brain injury [46][47][48], strokes [47,[49][50][51]], Parkinson's [52], Alzheimer's [50,53], Huntington's [54] and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [50,55]. Other diseases in early stages of investigation include liver disorders [56], diabetes [57,58], and myocardial infarction [49,59]. Therapeutic targets for stem cells from cord blood include orthopedic applications for cartilage repair, spinal fusion and regenerative medicine [27,44,60,61].…”

G-CSF as an Adjunctive Therapy with Umbilical Cord Blood Cell Transplantation for Traumatic Brain Injury

“…Limited clinical trials of hUCB cells are being explored in cerebral palsy, inborn metabolic disorders, and stroke [for reviews see (17,45,86,119)]. Numerous studies have described several advantages of hUCB in cell transplantation therapy, such as providing an unlimited supply of cells in culture, thereby circumventing ethical and logistical issues, availability in significant quantities and producing higher yields of hematopoietic progenitor cells, retained capacity of stem or progenitor cell from cord blood to proliferate and differentiate despite years of cryopreservation, low incidence of graft-versushost disease when compared to that of the adult bone marrow, and long-standing and successful clinical history in the hematopoietic field [for review see (131)].…”

Stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine in China

“…Recently, umbilical cord blood has emerged as a viable alternative to other sources of HSCs for the treatment of leukemia and nonmalignant hematologic conditions [20]. It has also become a common source for experimental interventions in a wide variety of nonhematological indications as disparate as myocardial infarction, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke, and inherited metabolic disorders [21][22][23][24]. While UCBSCs can mediate therapeutic effects in theory, nonhematological indications for UCBSC transplantation have not been widely accepted in standard practice.…”