Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells with self-renewal capacity which are present in diverse tissues. Recently, significant progresses have been made in the field of MSCs because of its therapeutic potential in regenerative medicine. MSCs selectively migrate toward sites of damage and remodeling, and have the ability to evade the immune system and to promote tissue repair through the production of a number of growth factors and cytokines. Many pre-clinical and clinical studies have been carried out to study its therapeutic effect in liver cirrhosis with promising results. In addition, experimental studies showed that this therapeutic effect can be improved by engineering MSCs to produce therapeutic genes. In this work, the role of MSCs in regenerative medicine and its clinical and pre-clinical applications are reviewed, with an emphasis on its potential as vehicles for therapeutic genes.
Keywords: gene therapy; hepatic cirrhosis; mesenchymal stem cells; regenerative medicine.