Stem cell therapy has undergone a great development in recent years. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are widely characterized as undifferentiated cells with a high self-renew capacity. Moreover, these cells are able to differentiate into multiple mesodermal tissues such as bone, cartilage, muscle, tendon or fat. Hence, MSCs can be considered as a very promising tool for regenerative medicine.
Bone marrow (BM) has been the main source for isolation of multipotent MSCs. Because of their characteristics, BM-MSCs offer a great therapeutic potential which, in fact, has already been applied to develop cell based therapies to treat a wide range of pathologies. Since the frequency and differentiating capacity of BM-MSCs decrease with age and they are not easily obtain from healthy donors, alternative sources of MSCs are desirable.
Adipose tissue is an alternative source to obtain MSCs. These cells can be isolated from liposuctions in large numbers and grown easily under standard tissue culture conditions maintaining the multilineage differentiation capacity. Moreover, MSCs can be also isolated from placenta and synoviun among other tissues.
Alvarez-Viejo Maria, LNGFR (CD271) as Marker to Identify Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Different Human Sources: Umbilical Cord Blood, Whartonâs Jelly and Bone Marrow
Last date updated on July, 2014
