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Review
. 2019 Oct 22;15(1):358.
doi: 10.1186/s12917-019-2087-2.

Mesenchymal stem cells therapy in companion animals: useful for immune-mediated diseases?

Inês Esteves Dias  1 , Pedro Olivério Pinto  1   2 , Luís Carlos Barros  1 , Carlos Antunes Viegas  3   4   5 , Isabel Ribeiro Dias  3   4   5 , Pedro Pires Carvalho  6   7
Affiliations
Review

Mesenchymal stem cells therapy in companion animals: useful for immune-mediated diseases?

Inês Esteves Dias et al. BMC Vet Res. .

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells are multipotent cells, with capacity for self-renewal and differentiation into tissues of mesodermal origin. These cells are possible therapeutic agents for autoimmune disorders, since they present remarkable immunomodulatory ability.The increase of immune-mediated diseases in veterinary medicine has led to a growing interest in the research of these disorders and their medical treatment. Conventional immunomodulatory drug therapy such as glucocorticoids or other novel therapies such as cyclosporine or monoclonal antibodies are associated with numerous side effects that limit its long-term use, leading to the need for developing new therapeutic strategies that can be more effective and safe.The aim of this review is to provide a critical overview about the therapeutic potential of these cells in the treatment of some autoimmune disorders (canine atopic dermatitis, feline chronic gingivostomatitis, inflammatory bowel disease and feline asthma) compared with their conventional treatment.Mesenchymal stem cell-based therapy in autoimmune diseases has been showing that this approach can ameliorate clinical signs or even cause remission in most animals, with the exception of canine atopic dermatitis in which little to no improvement was observed.Although mesenchymal stem cells present a promising future in the treatment of most of these disorders, the variability in the outcomes of some clinical trials has led to the current controversy among authors regarding their efficacy. Mesenchymal stem cell-based therapy is currently requiring a deeper and detailed analysis that allows its standardization and better adaptation to the intended therapeutic results, in order to overcome current limitations in future trials.

Keywords: Canine atopic dermatitis; Feline asthma; Feline chronic gingivostomatitis; Immunomodulation; Inflammatory bowel disease; Mesenchymal stem cells.

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Conflict of interest statement

P.P.C. declares to be the founder and CEO of Vetherapy, a biotech company focused on regenerative products. P.P.C. also declares that his company had no influence or involvement with any of the results in analysis in this study. The remaining authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Stem cells differentiation
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Characterization of mesenchymal stem cells
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Possible origin of mesenchymal stem cells and their differentiation into mesodermal, endodermal and ectodermal cells
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Mesenchymal stem cells’ mechanism of action and their interaction with immune cells
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Factors that can influence mesenchymal stem cells therapy
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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