ABSTRACT
At present, surgical and endoscopic interventions are mainly employed to treat ischemic-type biliary lesion (ITBL). Due to the disadvantages of single therapeutic strategy, high difficulty and expensive medical cost, it is urgent to identify a novel treatment option. Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) has become potential seed cell for tissue and organ repair in regenerative medicine due to its high self-renewal capability, multi-directional differentiation potential, low immunogenicity and immunoregulatory effects, etc. Recent studies have demonstrated that MSC transplantation into ITBL animal models may not only home to the injured area, but also promote the repair of injured biliary tract tissues through anti-apoptotic and pro-angiogenic effect, which indicates that MSC transplantation is expected to become a new strategy for the treatment of ITBL. In this article, the biological characteristics of MSC, the mechanism and clinical application of MSC transplantation for ITBL were reviewed.