RECENT STUDIES AND FINDINGS ON CELL THERAPY

Stem cells are attracting attention as a key element in future medicine, satisfying the desire to live a healthier life with the possibility that they can regenerate tissue damaged or degenerated by disease or aging.

Today, treatment with stem cells has received increasing attention to overcome the limitations of conventional treatment and medicine for intractable diseases. Stem cell therapy has been tried for various diseases, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Burger’s disease, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, and intractable osteoarthritis.

The genuine properties of stem cells attributable to regenerating damaged or degenerative tissue are the self-reproduction or self-renewal and plasticity of differentiation. Self-renewal refers to the ability to multiply themselves through the generations of daughter cells with the same characteristics as undifferentiated stem cells.

Researchers have developed stem cell treatment using various stem cell sources (such as bone-marrow-derived stem cell (BMSC) and adipose-derived stem cell (ASC)), different cell populations, and supplementary substances such as plateletrich plasma (PRP) or stromal vascular fraction.

Based on these findings, most previous studies attributed the role of stem cells in regenerating articular cartilage to their ability to differentiate into multiple lineages. A large number of studies focused on the development of materials and methods to induce stem cells to differentiate into cells with a chondrocyte phenotype.

Autologous MSCs are widely studied and are advantageous in cell transplantation because of simple isolation and abundant cell source. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect of MSCs on the inflammatory reaction and regeneration of damaged cartilages has been confirmed in recent clinical trials. ASC researches are also being actively conducted in North America and East Asia under varying conditions. Most studies use not only ASC but are in combination with PRP and SVF and other known growth factors such as transforming growth factor (TGF)-β, insulin-like growth factor 1, and fibroblast growth factors. Cell-growth factorcontaining fractions have exhibited enhanced chondrogenesis of stem cells in in vitro and in

Researchers have long known that the conditioned medium (CM) of stem cells can promote cell proliferation and differentiation in vitro and promote tissue repair and regeneration in vivo. It has been shown that stem cells secrete many cytokines and proteins. The synergistic effect of small molecules secreted by MSCs can reduce cell damage and improve the repairability of tissue Second, the immunomodulatory effect of stem cells has been increasingly reported. Stem cells can regulate the immune microenvironment during the process of tissue repair and provide a good environment for tissue regeneration.

References

Cho, H., Kim, H., Kim, Y.G. and Kim, K., 2019. Recent Clinical Trials in Adipose-derived Stem Cell Mediated Osteoarthritis Treatment. Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering, 24(6), pp.839-853.

Han, Y.H., Kim, K.H., Abdi, S. and Kim, T.K., 2019. Stem cell therapy in pain medicine. The Korean journal of pain, 32(4), p.245.

Jiang, S., Tian, G., Li, X., Yang, Z., Wang, F., Tian, Z., Huang, B., Wei, F., Zha, K., Sun, Z. and Sui, X., 2021. Research Progress on Stem Cell Therapies for Articular Cartilage Regeneration. Stem cells international, 2021.