The therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells in treating osteoporosis

Osteoporosis (OP), a common systemic metabolic bone disease, is characterized by low bone mass, increasing bone fragility and a high risk of fracture. At present, the clinical treatment of OP mainly involves anti-bone resorption drugs and anabolic agents for bone, but their long-term use can cause serious side effects. The development of stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine has provided a new approach to the clinical treatment of various diseases, even with a hope for cure. Recently, the therapeutic advantages of the therapy have been shown for a variety of orthopedic diseases. However, these stem cell-based researches are currently limited to animal models; the uncertainty regarding the post-transplantation fate of stem cells and their safety in recipients has largely restricted the development of human clinical trials. Nevertheless, the feasibility of mesenchymal stem cells to treat osteoporotic mice has drawn a growing amount of intriguing attention from clinicians to its potential of applying the stem cell-based therapy as a new therapeutic approach to OP in the future clinic. In the current review, therefore, we explored the potential use of mesenchymal stem cells in human OP treatment.

Using mesenchymal stem cells as a therapy for bone regeneration and repairing

Bone is a unique tissue which could regenerate completely after injury rather than heal itself with a scar. Compared with other tissues the difference is that, during bone repairing and regeneration, after the inflammatory phase the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are recruited to the injury site and differentiate into either chondroblasts or osteoblasts precursors, leading to bone repairing and regeneration. Besides these two precursors, the MSCs can also differentiate into adipocyte precursors, skeletal muscle precursors and some other mesodermal cells. With this multiline-age potentiality, the MSCs are probably used to cure bone injury and other woundings in the near future. Here we will introduce the recent developments in understanding the mechanism of MSCs action in bone regeneration and repairing.