Differentiation of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) into functional neural cells has been widely investigated for treating neural diseases. However, the limited neural differentiation of BMSCs remains a big challenge to overcome. Herein, for the first time, ginseng-derived exosomes (G-Exos) were demonstrated to have excellent efficiency in stimulating the neural differentiation of BMSCs by transferring the incorporated miRNAs to BMSCs efficiently. In vivo, a photo-cross-linkable hydrogel with chemokine and G-Exos loaded shows strong efficacy in recruiting and directing the neural differentiation of BMSCs in the program. G-Exos were demonstrated to be promising nanoplatforms in transferring plant-derived miRNAs to mammalian stem cells for neural differentiation both in vitro and in vivo, possessing great potential in neural regenerative medicine.
Keywords: mesenchymal stem cells; microRNA transfer; nanoplatform; neural differentiation; plant-derived exosomes.