Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
which could be widely used in tumor therapy. Besides, recent evidence also
suggests that MSCs selectively migrate to areas of injury/inflammation, where
they are involved in tissue repair. This effect makes MSCs attractive candidates
for widely used delivery vehicles for site-specific therapy. In the future, these
strategies could be extended by using various genes to achieve a general cell-
based gene therapy platform for the treatment of different diseases.
MSCs have attracted considerable attention as novel tools for the delivery of
therapeutic proteins in vivo, and the ability to efficiently transfer genes of
interest into these cells would create a number of therapeutic opportunities.
77
However, the potential concerns in using MSCs as delivery vehicles are that we
understand little about the fate of this cell population in vivo
78,79
and the
possibility that MSCs themselves might enhance or initiate tumor growth.
80-82
Although more and more studies are using gene-engineered MSCs for the
treatment of tumor disease and they are considered as a powerful therapeutic
weapon for the targeting of advanced malignancies,
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until now the cytokines
and the vectors used are still limited.
The use of MSCs for cancer gene therapy usually provides some degree of
tumor selectivity; however, strategies to improve tumor homing might greatly
increase their applicability as tumor-targeted cell delivery vehicles.
83
The cell
homing ability may be enhanced by using specific culture agents or medium
treatments to alter the expression profile of cell-surface receptors.
84,85
It might
be possible to manipulate cell targeting or homing properties by pre-
programming the MSCs to alter their properties during the gene delivery
process to make them most effective in targeting the tumor site. This approach
represents another option of investigation to enhance the efficiency of cellular
vehicle strategies.
Still, much work remains to be done before the clinical application of MSC-
based therapy. The development of optimally targeted cellular vectors will
require both advances in molecular and cell biology and the improvement in
the methods for gene transduction to cells. A lot of effort still needs to be made
to develop delivery systems capable of effectively transporting various
therapeutic cytokines. Together, the further development of MSC-based
therapy will benefit from a better understanding of biology, tissue stem cell
engineering, and pharmaceutics, as well as gene therapy.
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (30873173, 30973648, 81273441, 81001410), the
Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (R2090176), and
the China-Japan Scientific Cooperation Program (81011140077) supported by
both the NSFC, China, and the JSPS, Japan. We would like to thank Dr.
Guping Tang (Institute of Chemical Biology and Pharmaceutical Chemistry,
Zhejiang University) for providing Cyd and TAT-cyd and thank Ms. Cai-Xia
He for technical assistance.
