Research progress in mesenchymal stem cells for treating spinal cord injury / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Spinal cord injury is one of the diseases with highest disability. Due to the limited regeneration ability of spinal axons, it is difficult to recover and often leads to severe neurological sequelae. Treatment for spinal cord injury has become a hotspot. With the continuous development of biological and molecular biology research, mesenchymal stem cells have been found to possess big potential for treating spinal cord injury, and bring hope for the repair of spinal cord injury. OBJECTIVE: To review the treatment efficacy, property, application, limitations and prospects of mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of spinal cord injury. METHODS: Databases of PubMed, Web of Science, WanFang and CNKI were searched for the articles concerning mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of spinal cord injury. The keywords were “spinal cord injury, mesenchymal stem cell” in English and Chinese, respectively. Finally, 85 articles eligible for the inclusion and exclusion criteria were included for result analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Mesenchymal stem cells repair spinal cord injury through a variety of mechanisms. For example, after in vivo transplantation, mesenchymal stem cells differentiate into neurons to replace damaged neurons. They secrete various nutrients through paracrine to regulate the microenvironment of spinal cord injury. Meanwhile, mesenchymal stem cells produce various extracellular matrixes, and provide support for axon regeneration, thus promoting neuronal axon regeneration. Although basic experiments have shown that mesenchymal stem cells exert satisfactory role in the treatment of spinal cord injury, the clinical outcome of mesenchymal stem cells is unsatisfactory. It is necessary to further explore the mechanism of action of mesenchymal stem cells in spinal cord injury.