Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. May 26, 2024; 16(5): 467-478
Published online May 26, 2024. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v16.i5.467
Mesenchymal stem cells’ “garbage bags” at work: Treating radial nerve injury with mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes
Mazhar Mushtaq, Doaa Hussein Zineldeen, Muhammad Abdul Mateen, Khawaja Husnain Haider
Mazhar Mushtaq, Doaa Hussein Zineldeen, Muhammad Abdul Mateen, Khawaja Husnain Haider, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman AlRajhi University, Albukairiyah 52736, AlQaseem, Saudi Arabia
Doaa Hussein Zineldeen, Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Tanta 6632110, Egypt
Author contributions: Zineldeen DH contributed to writing and generating the visual abstract of this manuscript; Mushtaq M and Mateen MA were involved in writing up and revising this article; Mateen MA contributed to the figures; and Haider KH participated in writing, finalizing, and submitting the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Khawaja Husnain Haider, BSc, BPharm, MPharm, PhD, Chairman, Full Professor, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman AlRajhi University, AlMadina Road, Albukairiyah 52736, AlQaseem, Saudi Arabia. [email protected]
Received: February 20, 2024
Revised: April 3, 2024
Accepted: April 25, 2024
Published online: May 26, 2024
Processing time: 93 Days and 21.6 Hours
Abstract

Unlike central nervous system injuries, peripheral nerve injuries (PNIs) are often characterized by more or less successful axonal regeneration. However, structural and functional recovery is a senile process involving multifaceted cellular and molecular processes. The contemporary treatment options are limited, with surgical intervention as the gold-standard method; however, each treatment option has its associated limitations, especially when the injury is severe with a large gap. Recent advancements in cell-based therapy and cell-free therapy approaches using stem cell-derived soluble and insoluble components of the cell secretome are fast-emerging therapeutic approaches to treating acute and chronic PNI. The recent pilot study is a leap forward in the field, which is expected to pave the way for more enormous, systematic, and well-designed clinical trials to assess the therapeutic efficacy of mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes as a bio-drug either alone or as part of a combinatorial approach, in an attempt synergize the best of novel treatment approaches to address the complexity of the neural repair and regeneration.

Keywords: Exosome, Mesenchymal stem cells, Nerve injury, Stem cells, Secretome, Regeneration

Core Tip: The extracellular vesicles constituting the insoluble component of the secretome were once considered cell’s garbage bags. They have become a hot area of research since realizing their significance as an essential means of intracellular communication. They have shown promise for therapeutic applications for repairing and regenerating the damaged tissues via delivering their payload to the resident reparative cells and supporting them in the intrinsic repair process. Although stem cell-derived exosomes have been extensively studied for peripheral nerve injury repair in experimental animal models, their use for radial nerve injury repair in a patient, as the pilot study by Civelek et al, is expected to pave the way for assessment in future clinical trials.