Advanced Research on Stem Cell Therapy for Hepatic Diseases: Potential Implications of a Placenta-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell-based Strategy / 한양의대학술지

ABSTRACT

The category of chronic liver diseases comprise one of the most common medical diagnoses worldwide. Currently, orthotopic liver transplantation is the only effective treatment for end-stage hepatic disease, but this procedure is associated with many problems, including donor scarcity, operative damage, high cost, risk of immune rejection and lifelong immunosuppressive treatments. Thus, the development of new therapies is highly desirable. Cell therapy with stem cells is increasingly being used to repair damaged tissue or to promote organ regeneration. Stem cells, which possess self-renewal activity as well as differentiation potential, can be categorized as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) or adult stem cells (ASCs), which include hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Recently, placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (PD-MSCs) have been reported, and they are attracting much interest in stem cell research for their multiple advantages 1) no ethical concerns, 2) the ability to obtain abundant cell numbers, 3) multi-lineage differentiation potential, and 4) strong immunosuppressive properties. PD-MSCs differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells when exposed to hepatogenic differentiation-inducing conditions and PD-MSCs transplantation has been shown to enhance hepatic regeneration and/or survival in a rat hepatic failure model by suppressing the progression of fibrosis and apoptosis and activating autophagy. In this review, we will explain the characteristics of several kinds of PD-MSCs and discuss recent studies of the therapeutic potential of PD-MSCs in the repair of liver injury and their utility in regenerative medicine. Although many problems remain to be solved, many studies support the potential for human stem cell therapies, including PD-MSCs, as a promising new technology for the therapeutic regeneration of human liver intractably damaged due to chronic disease and/or toxic and environmental insult.