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Review
. 2021 Feb 12:12:2040622321993442.
doi: 10.1177/2040622321993442. eCollection 2021.

Mesenchymal stem cell-based treatment in autoimmune liver diseases: underlying roles, advantages and challenges

Chengmei He  1 , Yanlei Yang  1 , Kunyu Zheng  1 , Yiran Chen  1 , Suying Liu  1 , Yongzhe Li  2 , Qin Han  3 , Robert Chunhua Zhao  3 , Li Wang  4 , Fengchun Zhang  4
Affiliations
Review

Mesenchymal stem cell-based treatment in autoimmune liver diseases: underlying roles, advantages and challenges

Chengmei He et al. Ther Adv Chronic Dis. .

Abstract

Autoimmune liver disease (AILD) is a series of chronic liver diseases with abnormal immune responses, including autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). The treatment options for AILD remain limited, and the adverse side effects of the drugs that are typically used for treatment frequently lead to a low quality of life for AILD patients. Moreover, AILD patients may have a poor prognosis, especially those with an incomplete response to first-line treatment. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are pluripotent stem cells with low immunogenicity and can be conveniently harvested. MSC-based therapy is emerging as a promising approach for treating liver diseases based on their advantageous characteristics of immunomodulation, anti-fibrosis effects, and differentiation to hepatocytes, and accumulating evidence has revealed the positive effects of MSC therapy in AILD. In this review, we first summarize the mechanisms, safety, and efficacy of MSC treatment for AILD based on work in animal and clinical studies. We also discuss the challenges of MSC therapy in clinical applications. In summary, although promising data from preclinical studies are now available, MSC therapy is currently far for being applied in clinical practice, thus developing MSC therapy in AILD is still challenging and warrants further research.

Keywords: autoimmune hepatitis; mesenchymal stem cell; primary biliary cholangitis; primary sclerosing cholangitis; therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Mechanisms of MSC-based treatment in autoimmune liver diseases. AIH, autoimmune hepatitis; Breg, regulatory B cell; DC, dendritic cell; HSC, hepatic stellate cell; IFN-γ, interferon-γ; IL-10, interleukin-10; MSC, mesenchymal stem cell; NK cell, natural killer cell; PBC, primary biliary cholangitis; PSC, primary sclerosing cholangitis; Th, helper T cell; Treg, regulatory T cell.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Challenges of MSC-based treatment in clinical practice. MSC, mesenchymal stem cell.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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