Mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of spinal cord injury: Cell therapy and combination of new drugs and biomaterials / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The treatment of spinal cord injury is mainly to improve the inflammation microenvironment of the injury site, as well as the regeneration and repair of neural function. Mesenchymal stem cells have the characteristics of easy proliferation in vitro, multi-directional differentiation, and suppression of secondary inflammation and immunomodulation, which makes the transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells for various refractory tissue injury diseases including spinal cord injury become a potential cell therapy. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the preclinical and clinical research of mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of spinal cord injury in recent years, and put forward the problems and development directions of mesenchymal stem cells in experimental research. METHODS: We searched the articles published in Wanfang databases, CNKI and PubMed databases from 2000 to 2020. The key words were “mesenchymal stem cells, spinal cord injury, cell transplantation, immunomodulation, combination therapy, biomaterials” in Chinese and English, respectively. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: (1) Mesenchymal stem cells from different sources play the role of anti-inflammatory, inducing axon and neuron regeneration in animal models and clinical experiments, and effectively improve the neural function of the damaged area. (2) The exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells show the effects of immunomodulation and angiogenesis in the disease model of spinal cord injury. (3) In order to maximize the potential of mesenchymal stem cells, exploring cell pretreatment, combined with new drugs or biological materials is the research direction of mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of spinal cord injury.