title: Concise review: mesenchymal stem cells and translational medicine: emerging issues.
abstract: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are emerging as a promising therapeutic approach of cell-based therapy for a wide range of autoimmune disorders and degenerative diseases. In preclinical and clinical studies, MSCs have been shown to be highly efficient in treating graft-versus-host disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, myocardial infarction, liver cirrhosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other disorders. The underlying therapeutic mechanisms of MSCs include their homing efficiency to the tissue injury sites, their differentiation potential, their capability to produce a large amount of trophic factors, and their immunomodulatory effect. Because tissue damage sites are complicated milieus with distinct types of inflammatory cells and factors, available data have demonstrated that the properties of MSCs could be fundamentally influenced by the inflammatory elements. Thus, an understanding of the interaction between MSCs and the inflammatory microenvironment will provide critical information in revealing the precise in vivo mechanisms of MSC-mediated therapeutic effects and designing more practical protocols for clinical use of these cells.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences/Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Guangwen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Fengping
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Wenzhao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xiaohui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Yanyun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yufang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002465:Cell Movement; D006801:Humans; D018836:Inflammation Mediators / Q000378:metabolism; D045164:Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation; D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D044968:Regenerative Medicine; D055153:Stem Cell Niche; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical
chemical_list: D018836:Inflammation Mediators