Human Wharton's Jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells: advances and prospects in directional differentiation / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: In recent years, because of its wide range of sources, easy access, strong self-renewal capacity, multi-directional differentiation potential, low immunogenicity and low ethical controversy and other characteristics, human Wharton's Jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells have become popular seed cells in regenerative medicine. OBJECTIVE: To review the advances in directional differentiation of human Wharton's Jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells in recent five years. METHODS: The PubMed and CNKI databases were searched by the first author using the keywords of "Wharton Jelly derived mesenchymal stem cell, human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell, differentiation" in English and Chinese, respectively. The retrieval time was from January 2012 to January 2017. After initial search, 120 articles were collected, and 46 articles were included in final analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Up to now, there are more than 18 types of cells that have been differentiated from Wharton's Jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells. In recent 5 years, some studies have improved the previous induction method, some studies have developed the new directional differentiation of Wharton's Jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells, and the others have explored the involved signal pathways and relevant molecular mechanisms. Differentiated Wharton's Jelly-derived mesenchymal stem cells can be used for human tissue regeneration and repair, which give hope to the treatment of many refractory diseases.