Engineered adult stem cells: a promising tool for anti-cancer therapy

Abstract

Cancers are one of the most dreaded diseases in human history and have been targeted by numerous trials including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and anti-cancer drugs. Adult stem cells (ASCs), which can regenerate tissues and repair damage, have emerged as leading therapeutic candidates due to their homing ability toward tumor foci. Stem cells can precisely target malicious tumors, thereby minimizing the toxicity of normal cells and unfavorable side effects. ASCs, such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), neural stem cells (NSCs), and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), are powerful tools for delivering therapeutic agents to various primary and metastatic cancers. Engineered ASCs act as a bridge between the tumor sites and tumoricidal reagents, producing therapeutic substances such as exosomes, viruses, and anti-cancer proteins encoded by several suicide genes. This review focuses on various anti-cancer therapies implemented via ASCs and summarizes the recent treatment progress and shortcomings. [BMB Reports 2023; 56(2): 71-77].

Fig. 1

Overview of the ASCs mediated anti-cancer treatments. ASCs mediated anti-cancer therapies are differentiated according to the use of MSCs, NSCs, and HSCs. Both MSCs and NSCs use the same carrier to deliver anti-cancer substances such as prodrug, oncolytic virus, exosomes, cytokines and photothermal heat. Viral transduced HSCs are localized in the bone marrow, and produce T cell progenitors that undergo normal immune cell maturation. Subsequently, immune cells expressing TCR that recognizes cancer-associated antigen, confer specific anti-cancer activity for a long time. Conjugation between HSCs and platelet adequately delivers immune checkpoint inhibitors to the bone marrow, and augments an anti-leukemia immune response.