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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Sep 26, 2022; 14(9): 684-699
Published online Sep 26, 2022. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v14.i9.684
Strategies to improve the effect of mesenchymal stem cell therapy on inflammatory bowel disease
Meng-Yue Shi, Lian Liu, Fu-Yuan Yang
Meng-Yue Shi, School of Medicine, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434023, Hubei Province, China
Lian Liu, Department of Pharmacology, Medical School of Yangtze University, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434023, Hubei Province, China
Fu-Yuan Yang, Health Science Center, Yangtze University, Jingzhou 434020, Hubei Province, China
Author contributions: Shi MY collected the literature and wrote the manuscript; Liu L revised the manuscript; Yang FY designed, wrote, edited and prepared the manuscript for submission; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Science and Technology Research Project of Hubei Province, No. 2021CFB210.
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: Fu-Yuan Yang, PhD, Lecturer, Health Science Center, Yangtze University, No. 1 Xueyuan Road, Jingzhou 434020, Hubei Province, China. ivansblue@sina.com
Received: May 18, 2022
Peer-review started: May 18, 2022
First decision: June 23, 2022
Revised: July 7, 2022
Accepted: September 8, 2022
Article in press: September 8, 2022
Published online: September 26, 2022
Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and is an idiopathic, chronic inflammatory disease of the colonic mucosa. The occurrence of IBD, causes irreversible damage to the colon and increases the risk of carcinoma. The routine clinical treatment of IBD includes drug treatment, endoscopic treatment and surgery. The vast majority of patients are treated with drugs and biological agents, but the complete cure of IBD is difficult. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have become a new type of cell therapy for the treatment of IBD due to their immunomodulatory and nutritional functions, which have been confirmed in many clinical trials. This review discusses some potential mechanisms of MSCs in the treatment of IBD, summarizes the experimental results, and provides new insights to enhance the therapeutic effects of MSCs in future applications.

Keywords: Mesenchymal stem cells, Inflammatory bowel diseases, Inflammation, Pretreatment, Gene editing

Core Tip: Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) transplantation is a novel treatment method for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that has exhibits certain achievements in clinical trials. Here, we reviewed the developed strategies for enhancing the therapeutic effect of MSCs, and among these, pretreatment with MSCs is the most common method. The pretreatments include bioactive substances, hypoxia and modification of culture methods and are able to enhance the migration ability of MSCs to repair the damaged intestinal mucosa or upregulate the expression of cytokines. These methods provide new ideas for the future clinical application of MSCs in the treatment of IBD.