Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2010 Nov;21(11):1513-26.
doi: 10.1089/hum.2010.165. Epub 2010 Oct 22.

Genetic engineering of mesenchymal stem cells and its application in human disease therapy

Conrad P Hodgkinson  1 , José A Gomez, Maria Mirotsou, Victor J Dzau
Affiliations
Review

Genetic engineering of mesenchymal stem cells and its application in human disease therapy

Conrad P Hodgkinson et al. Hum Gene Ther. 2010 Nov.

Abstract

The use of stem cells for tissue regeneration and repair is advancing both at the bench and bedside. Stem cells isolated from bone marrow are currently being tested for their therapeutic potential in a variety of clinical conditions including cardiovascular injury, kidney failure, cancer, and neurological and bone disorders. Despite the advantages, stem cell therapy is still limited by low survival, engraftment, and homing to damage area as well as inefficiencies in differentiating into fully functional tissues. Genetic engineering of mesenchymal stem cells is being explored as a means to circumvent some of these problems. This review presents the current understanding of the use of genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cells in human disease therapy with emphasis on genetic modifications aimed to improve survival, homing, angiogenesis, and heart function after myocardial infarction. Advancements in other disease areas are also discussed.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Advantages of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy. The cellular characteristics of MSCs are important for their therapeutic uses. These characteristics include being easily isolated and manipulated ex vivo, being immunologically inert, homing into the injury area, and having multilineage differentiation capacity. Genetic engineering of MSCs is aimed at improving their survival and engraftment as well as enhancing their repair mechanisms.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Genetic modification of MSCs enhances their therapeutic potential. Genetic modification of MSCs is aimed toward enhancing different cellular process such as MSC survival after transplantation, homing, differentiation, angiogenesis, and antiinflammatory effects. Some of the genetic targets used for this purpose are highlighted.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abdallah B.M. Haack-Sorensen M. Burns J.S. Elsnab B. Jakob F. Hokland P. Kassem M. Maintenance of differentiation potential of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells immortalized by human telomerase reverse transcriptase gene despite [corrected] extensive proliferation. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 2005;326:527–538. - PubMed
    1. Aguayo-Mazzucato C. Bonner-Weir S. Stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes mellitus. Nat. Rev. Endocrinol. 2010;6:139–148. - PubMed
    1. Akiyama Y. Radtke C. Kocsis J.D. Remyelination of the rat spinal cord by transplantation of identified bone marrow stromal cells. J. Neurosci. 2002;22:6623–6630. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alfaro M.P. Pagni M. Vincent A. Atkinson J. Hill M.F. Cates J. Davidson J.M. Rottman J. Lee E. Young P.P. The Wnt modulator sFRP2 enhances mesenchymal stem cell engraftment, granulation tissue formation and myocardial repair. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2008;105:18366–18371. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arguero R. Careaga-Reyna G. Castano-Guerra R. Garrido-Garduno M.H. Magana-Serrano J.A. de Jesus Nambo-Lucio M. Cellular autotransplantation for ischemic and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy: Preliminary report. Arch. Med. Res. 2006;37:1010–1014. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources