Ruiz MA, Kaiser Junior RLR, Piron-Ruiz G, de Quadros LG. Are mesenchymal stem/stromal cells a novel avenue for the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease? World J Stem Cells 2025; 17(5): 99638 [DOI: 10.4252/wjsc.v17.i5.99638]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Milton Artur Ruiz, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Associação Portuguesa de Beneficência, Rua Catarina Nucci Parise 760, São José do Rio Preto 15090 470, São Paulo, Brazil. milruiz@yahoo.com.br
Research Domain of This Article
Transplantation
Article-Type of This Article
Editorial
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Stem Cells. May 26, 2025; 17(5): 99638 Published online May 26, 2025. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v17.i5.99638
Are mesenchymal stem/stromal cells a novel avenue for the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease?
Milton Artur Ruiz, Roberto Luiz R Kaiser Junior, Gabriel Piron-Ruiz, Luiz Gustavo de Quadros
Milton Artur Ruiz, Roberto Luiz R Kaiser Junior, Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Associação Portuguesa de Beneficência, São José do Rio Preto 15090 470, São Paulo, Brazil
Gabriel Piron-Ruiz, Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Beneficência Portuguesa Hospital, São José do Rio Preto 15090 470, São Paulo, Brazil
Luiz Gustavo de Quadros, Department of Endoscopy, Beneficência Portuguesa Hospital, ABC Medical School, São Bernardo 15015 110, São Paulo, Brazil
Author contributions: Ruiz MA participated in the conception and design of the article, and wrote the article; Kaiser Junior RLR, Piron-Ruiz G, and de Quadros LG participated in the conception and design of the article and gave critical analysis of the draft versions. All authors read and approved the final version.
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: Milton Artur Ruiz, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Associação Portuguesa de Beneficência, Rua Catarina Nucci Parise 760, São José do Rio Preto 15090 470, São Paulo, Brazil. milruiz@yahoo.com.br
Received: July 26, 2024 Revised: December 27, 2024 Accepted: April 11, 2025 Published online: May 26, 2025 Processing time: 303 Days and 20.9 Hours
Abstract
In this editorial, we comment on the article by Jiang et al. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a chronic liver disease characterized by the accumulation of fat in the liver without evidence of significant alcohol consumption. NAFLD can progress to more serious conditions such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. This disease is considered an emerging public health problem in several countries as it has increased in recent decades, currently affecting around 30% of the world’s population. The fatty diet and the current lifestyle of the Western population are identified as the main culprits of the disease. Drug treatment aims to reduce the weight of patients and treat metabolic alterations and diseases, including type 2 diabetes mellitus and other comorbidities that coexist with NAFLD. In this scenario, cell therapy with mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) has been proposed as a perspective treatment of numerous diseases that do not have definitive curative treatment, such as Crohn’s disease and coronavirus disease 2019. This is due to the versatile, immunomodulatory and regenerative properties of MSCs. The possibility of MSCs being used in patients with severe liver disease progressing to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or cirrhosis is summarized, because of the therapeutic benefits in reducing fibrosis of affected livers. It remains to be seen when MSC transplantation should be indicated for NAFLD, that is, at what stage of the disease and which phenotype, as well as deciding on the best source of MSCs, the dose, and the administration route. We conclude that well-designed clinical trials are essential in order to obtain robust results for the implementation of this modality in the medical practice.
Core Tip: As non-alcoholic fatty liver disease affects 30% of the world’s population and it should be considered a public health problem. Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) are a type of cell with a high degree of differentiation, immunomodulatory and regenerative potential, which qualifies them for the treatment of inflammatory, autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases. MSCs could be the basis for developing drugs to treat diseases that currently have no definitive or curative treatment. MSCs have the potential to transform into hepatocytes and reduce steatosis and the degree of liver fibrosis. MSCs are promising for the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, but there is a need to design clinical trials to obtain robust results for their implementation in medical practice.
