Regenerative medicine is a rapidly growing field that holds promise for the treatment of many currently unresponsive diseases. Stem cells (SCs) are undifferentiated cells with long-term self-renewal potential and the capacity to develop into specialized cells. SC-based therapies constitute a novel and promising concept in regenerative medicine. Radiotherapy is the most frequently used method in the adjuvant treatment of tumorous alterations. In the future, the usage of SCs in regenerative medicine will be affected by their regular and inevitable exposure to ionizing radiation (IR). This phenomenon will be observed during treatment as well as diagnosis. The issue of the genetic stability of SCs and cells differentiated from SCs is crucial in the context of the application of these cells in clinical practice. This review examines current knowledge concerning the DNA repair mechanisms (base excision repair, nucleotide excision repair, mismatch repair, homologous recombination and non-homologous end-joining) of SCs in response to the harmful effects of genotoxic agents such as IR and chemotherapeutics.
Keywords: DNA damage response; DNA repair; chemotherapeutics; genetic stability; ionizing radiation; pluripotent stem cells.