Important role of mesenchymal stem cells in immune tolerance induction in heart transplantation / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Heart transplantation is an important treatment for end-stage heart disease. The use of immunosuppressive drugs is indispensable for the maintenance of transplantation. Given the enormous side effects of immunosuppressive drugs, it may even have a significant impact on the quality of life of patients. People began to explore new ways to induce transplantation tolerance to avoid the use of immunosuppressive drugs. The immunomodulation characteristics of mesenchymal stem cells have attracted the attention of researchers and a large number of related researches have been carried out. OBJECTIVE: To summarize and investigate the characteristics of immune regulation of mesenchymal stem cells and immune tolerance induction in heart transplantation and their relationship. METHODS: We searched relevant literature in PubMed database. Key words were “stem cell; mesenchymal stem cells; MSC; MSCs; heart transplantation; cardiac allograft; heart allograft; immune tolerance; tolerance; immunological rejection”. The repetitive studies were excluded after screening, and the related literature was arranged and summarized. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: On one hand, mesenchymal stem cells have different effects on a variety of immune cells. On the other hand, mesenchymal stem cells regulate or directly produce a large number of biological active factors so as to constitute a complex network, creating a microenvironment conducive to immune regulation. The application of mesenchymal stem cells in heart transplantation is limited to animal experiments, and the results are relatively optimistic. Researchers’ exploration of induction of immune tolerance in heart transplantation will help people to understand the field further and provide more inspiration to relevant clinicians.