Implantation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells for ischemic stroke: perspectives and challenges

Abstract

Ischemic stroke is a focal cerebral insult that often leads to many adverse neurological complications severely affecting the quality of life. The prevalence of stroke is increasing throughout the world, while the efficacy of current pharmacological therapies remains unclear. As a neuroregenerative therapy, the implantation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) has shown great possibility to restore function after stroke. This review article provides an update role of hUC-MSCs implantation in the treatment of ischemic stroke. With the unique "immunosuppressive and immunoprivilege" property, hUC-MSCs are advised to be an important candidate for allogeneic cell treatment. Nevertheless, most of the treatments are still at primary stage and not clinically feasible at the current time. Several uncertain problems, such as culture conditions, allograft rejection, and potential tumorigenicity, are the choke points in this cellular therapy. More preclinical researches and clinical studies are needed before hUC-MSCs implantation can be used as a routinely applied clinical therapy.

Extracellular vesicles in mesenchymal stromal cells: A novel therapeutic strategy for stroke (Review)

“…MSC are multipotent adult progenitor cells, which can be isolated from various sources, such as bone marrow, placenta, umbilical cord, umbilical cord blood and adipose tissues ( 9 , 10 ). MSCs have the unique abilities of self-renewal, proliferation and multipotent differentiation, and can differentiate into the different cell types of the three germ layers; neurons, adipocytes, osteoblasts, hepatocytes, endothelial cells and islet b cells ( 11 – 13 ).…”

“…A number of previous studies have confirmed the remarkable neuroregenerative ability of MSCs. MSC infusion in animal models of stroke have led to reduced infarct volume, enhanced synaptogenesis, increased vessel density and improved neurological function ( 9 ). In clinical trials, transplantation of MSCs was demonstrated to be a safe and feasible therapeutic strategy for stroke patients ( Table I ) ( 18 – 24 ).…”

The Beneficial Potential of Genetically Modified Stem Cells in the Treatment of Stroke: A Review

“…The last two decades have witnessed a surge in investigations proposing stem cells as a promising strategy to treat stroke ( Figure 1). Mesenchymal stem cells [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] from different sources including bone marrow [13,14] adipose tissue [15] and umbilical cord [16] as well as neural stem cells [17][18][19][20][21][22][23] are the most commonly used types of stem cells that have been employed for this purpose.…”

Allogeneic bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in the epineurium and perineurium of the recipient rat

“…Modern regenerative medicine has demonstrated that transplantation of different kinds of stem cells can have a stimulating effect on the processes of reparative regeneration of the central and peripheral nervous system (Southwell et al, 2014;Li, Hu, and Cheng, 2015;Sokolova and Polyntsev, 2017). In recent years, experimental elaboration of different cellular technologies to stimulate regeneration of damaged nerves is being carried out intensively.…”