Mesenchymal stem cells for retinal diseases.

International Journal of Ophthalmology
Wei Xu, Guo-Xing Xu

Abstract

Retinal diseases are featured with the common result of retinal cell apoptosis that will cause irreversible vision loss. Various attempts have been made for the solution against cell death. However, few approaches turn out to be effective. With the progress in mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) research, MSCs were considered as a promising source for cell replacement or neuroprotection in retinal disorders. MSCs have the property of self-renewal and are multipotent cells derived from various mesenchymal tissues, which were demonstrated being capable of differentiating into multilineage tissue cells. Some works were also done to differentiate MSCs into retinal cells. MSCs could be induced to express retinal cell markers under certain stimuli. Recent studies also suggest that MSCs should be an ideal source for neuroprotection via the secretion of a variety of neurotrophins. Engineered MSCs were also used as vehicles for continuous delivery of neurotrophins against retinal degeneration with encouraging results. Since there are still barriers on the differentiation of MSCs into functional retinal cells, the use of MSCs for neuroprotection in retinal diseases seems to be a more practicable approach and worthy of further investigations.

Citations

Dec 9, 2016·World Journal of Stem Cells·Sonia Labrador-VelandiaGirish Kumar Srivastava
Nov 24, 2017·Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology = Albrecht Von Graefes Archiv Für Klinische Und Experimentelle Ophthalmologie·Sonia Labrador VelandiaIvan Fernandez-Bueno
Jan 18, 2020·Stem Cells International·C Randall HarrellVladislav Volarevic

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Apoptosis

Apoptosis is a specific process that leads to programmed cell death through the activation of an evolutionary conserved intracellular pathway leading to pathognomic cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis