Restorative approaches in Parkinson's Disease: Which cell type wins the race?

The Role of Neural Stem Cells in Neurorestoration

“…In contrast to ES cells, tumorigenicity seems to be a minor problem with fetal NSCs. These cells are less flexible with regards to multiplication and differentiation, but there is increasing evidence that it is more beneficial to use cells that are already committed to becoming a particular cell type 138 .…”

“…It has been known that differentiated cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state by nuclear transfer to oocytes, fusion with ES cells or molecular reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells using genetic factors 138 . Most of the current reprogramming methods are using expression of putative oncogenes by retroviral vectors.…”

“…Hematopoietic stem cells www.intechopen.com (HSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are valuable sources for cell transplantation and cell therapy. Although recent in vitro as well as in vivo studies suggested that multipotent adult stem cells, or their pro-neurally converted derivatives, could display protective or regenerative effects in experimental models of CNS diseases 138 , more experimental data to translate the application of this type of cells to clinical trial is needed 137 .…”

1980-2011: Parkinson's Disease and Advance in Stem Cell Research

“…Concordantly, upon neuronal induction bone marrow-derived MSC downregulate markers of other lineages, but fail to differentiate into functional neurons (Thomas et al, 2011). The functional positive effects exerted by transplanted MSC in PD animal models, are still controversial on the basis of technical criticisms, strength of trial design or inconsistent experimental approaches (Meyer et al, 2010). MSC have a significant protective effect against dopaminergic cell loss both in vitro and in vivo (Park et al, 2008a), but whether this results from true dopaminergic neuron replacement and how the cells actually induced functional improvement are still far from being clarified (White, 2011).…”

“…Thus, before MSC can be considered a reliable source for clinical replacement of dopaminergic cells, their ability to transdifferentiate terminally towards a neuronal lineage needs to be resolved and their mechanism of action following transplantation needs to be elucidated (Schwarz and Storch, 2010). Another promising source of SC is represented by NSC, that can be derived from various source including the subventricular zone (SVZ), ES, umbilical cord blood, MSC, fetal brain as well as spinal cord, and grown in suspension as floating clusters (neurospheres) (Meyer et al, 2010). NSC can restore functions lost during ageing, and both migrate towards and repair neurological damages, exerting positive influence on the surrounding cells, including dysfunctional neurons (Ourednik et al, 2002).…”