Stem Cell-Based Therapy and Cell-Free Therapy as an Alternative Approach for Cardiac Regeneration

Abstract

The World Health Organization reports that cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) represent 32% of all global deaths. The ineffectiveness of conventional therapies in CVDs encourages the development of novel, minimally invasive therapeutic strategies for the healing and regeneration of damaged tissue. The self-renewal capacity, multilineage differentiation, lack of immunogenicity, and immunosuppressive properties of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) make them a promising option for CVDs. However, growing evidence suggests that myocardial regeneration occurs through paracrine factors and extracellular vesicle (EV) secretion, rather than through differentiation into cardiomyocytes. Research shows that stem cells secrete or surface-shed into their culture media various cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, anti-inflammatory factors, and EVs, which constitute an MSC-conditioned medium (MSC-CM) or the secretome. The use of MSC-CM enhances cardiac repair through resident heart cell differentiation, proliferation, scar mass reduction, a decrease in infarct wall thickness, and cardiac function improvement comparable to MSCs without their side effects. This review highlights the limitations and benefits of therapies based on stem cells and their secretome as an innovative treatment of CVDs.

Stem Cells Derived from Human Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth Functional Assessment: Exploring the Changes of Free Fatty Acids Composition during Cultivation

“…During each passage, flow cytometry was employed to evaluate the immunophenotype of the cells and analyze the expression of MSC cell surface markers. While no unique MSC markers have been identified so far, we observed that the proliferating cells expressed the MSC markers CD90, CD29, CD44, CD56, CD73, CD105, and CD117, but not the hematopoietic stem cell-related molecules CD34 and CD45 [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Throughout the experimental period (P1-P10), the analyzed cell populations exhibited consistently high expression (over 70%) of CD90, CD29, CD44, and CD73 markers, as depicted in Figure 2A-D (and Figure S1 in Supplementary Material).…”

“…Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) in permanent teeth and stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHEDs) are known to have MSC-like features, including a fibroblast-like morphology and adherence to plastic surfaces in cell culture experiments, and share a variety of cell surface markers, including CD90, CD29, CD44, CD73. DPSCs and SHEDs lack hematopoietic markers expression: CD14, CD19, CD34, and CD45 [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. DPSCs and SHEDs can be easily isolated and expanded in vitro from teeth that would otherwise be discarded as medical waste.…”