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Therapeutic application of mesenchymal stem cells in bone and joint diseases

Clinical and Experimental Medicine volume 14, pages 13–24 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the non-hematopoietic progenitor cells, are multi-potent stem cells from a variety of tissues with the capability of self-renewal, proliferation, differentiation into multi-lineage cell types, as well as anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory. These properties make MSCs an ideal source of cell therapy in bone and joint diseases. This review describes the advances of animal study and preliminary clinical application in the past few years, related to MSC-based cell therapy in the common bone and joint diseases, including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, osteonecrosis of the femoral head and osteogenesis imperfecta. It highlights the promising prospect of MSC in clinical application of bone and joint diseases.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Key Project for Drug Research and Development from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2010ZX09401-302-5-07). The authors thank Professor Zhongchao Han in National Research Center for Stem Cell Engineering and Technology for critical reading of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The funder has no role in study design and the manuscript preparation. All authors indicate no actual and potential conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jinan Pediatric Research Institute, Qilu Children’s Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, 250022, China

    Yi Liu

  2. Key Laboratory for Biotech-Drugs of the Ministry of Health, Shandong Medicinal Biotechnology Center, Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, 250062, China

    Jianmei Wu, Youming Zhu & Jinxiang Han

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  1. Yi Liu
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  2. Jianmei Wu
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  3. Youming Zhu
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  4. Jinxiang Han
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Correspondence to Jinxiang Han.

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Liu, Y., Wu, J., Zhu, Y. et al. Therapeutic application of mesenchymal stem cells in bone and joint diseases. Clin Exp Med 14, 13–24 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-012-0218-1

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Keywords

  • Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)
  • Osteoarthritis (OA)
  • Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI)
  • Osteoporosis
  • Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH)
  • Rheumatoid arthritis (RA)