Mesenchymal stromal cell therapy for pancreatitis: Progress and challenges

Abstract

Pancreatitis is a common gastrointestinal disease with no effective therapeutic options, particularly for cases of severe acute and chronic pancreatitis (CP). Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells with diverse biological properties, including directional migration, paracrine, immunosuppressive, and antiinflammatory effects, which are considered an ideal candidate cell type for repairing tissue damage caused by various pathogenies. Several researchers have reported significant therapeutic efficacy of MSCs in animal models of acute and CP. However, the specific underlying mechanisms are yet to be clarified and clinical application of MSCs as pancreatitis therapy has rarely been reported. This review mainly focuses on the potential and challenges in clinical application of MSCs for treatment of acute and CP, along with discussion of the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Mesenchymal Stromal Cell-Based Targeted Therapy Pancreatic Cancer: Progress and Challenges

“…MSCs are adult stem cells capable of multilineage differentiation and self-renewal [ 46 , 47 ]. MSCs exist in most tissues and are usually extracted from various sources, including bone marrow, umbilical cord, menstrual blood, placenta, adipose tissues, and muscles [ 19 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. To date, MSCs have been shown to treat multiple diseases owing to their immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects and tissue repair ability [ 18 , 51 , 52 ].…”

Mesenchymal stem cells: Emerging concepts and recent advances in their roles in organismal homeostasis and therapy

“…The immunomodulatory/anti-inflammatory capacity of MSCs has been proven to be particularly important when MSCs treating autoimmune or skeletal degenerative diseases ( Csobonyeiova et al., 2017 ; Jiang et al., 2021 ; Zhu et al., 2021 ) upon systemic delivery. Another capacity of MSCs is migration, which enable them to migrate toward damaged tissues during development and after systemic infusion, to differentiate into functional cells that exert a reparative therapeutic effect, or to fuse with cells at the site of damage and then regenerate the damaged tissue ( Chen et al., 2016 ; Liesveld et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2020 ; Galgaro et al., 2021 ; Lee et al., 2021 ; Ma et al., 2021 ). All these repair processes suggest that MSCs can be mobilized to functional sites for endogenous tissue regeneration and functional remodeling.…”

“…The subcutaneously transplanted MSCs show long-distance chemotactic and inductive activity on recipient HSCs to form analog BM elements with ectopic hematopoiesis, which can rescue lethally irradiated mice and alleviate aging-related phenotypes in immunocompromised mice. These functional recoveries of endogenous stem cells, together with those observed in BMMSCs, are primarily attributed to the paracrine effects of donor MSCs, rather than their prolonged engraftment in recipient tissues ( Liu S. et al., 2015 ; Deng et al., 2016 ; Rahmani et al., 2020 ; Ma et al., 2021 ; Xiao et al., 2021 ).…”

The research progress of anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrosis treatment of chronic pancreatitis

“…First, MSCs can be used to restore pancreatic secretory function during total pancreatectomy and autologous islet transplantation ( 63 ). Second, MSCs have unique anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects, which can reduce the inflammatory response during CP, inhibit fibrosis, and rescue pancreatic function ( 62 , 64 ).…”