The Role of Human Postnatal Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Their Importance in Growth, Spinal Cord Injury and Other Neurodegenerative Disorders

Treatment of spinal cord injury: A review of engineering using neural and mesenchymal stem cells

“…As in the case of NSC, the mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are a type of multipotent stem cells that have the ability to differentiate into any cells within the mesenchymal linage, including osteoblasts, chondrocyte, adipocytes, and stroma (Sandner et al, ). They are also able to transdifferentiate into cells of endodermal and ectodermal lineages, such as hepatocytes and neurons, respectively (King et al, ). However, this does not occur in a quantitatively relevant fashion (Sandner et al, ).…”

“…MSC can be isolated from adult and neural tissues, with the major sources being bone marrow in adults and umbilical cord blood in fetuses and neonates. The fact that the MSC can be used as autologous cell grafts that easily can expand from relatively small amounts of bone marrow aspirates, along with their inflammatory and immune‐modulating function, makes them an attractive source for cellular transplantation (King et al, ; Sandner et al, ). Moreover, despite the fact that they can rapidly and extensively be expanded in cell cultures, there is no evidence of tumor production in vivo, and they have a strong capacity to increase tissue preservation, decrease cyst and injury size, and increase recovery of function (Bhanot et al, ).…”