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Review
. 2023 Feb 3:18:611-626.
doi: 10.2147/IJN.S395010. eCollection 2023.

Nanotherapeutic and Stem Cell Therapeutic Strategies in Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Promising Therapeutic Approach

Min Wei  1 , Zhaofei Yang  1 , Song Li  1 , Weidong Le  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Nanotherapeutic and Stem Cell Therapeutic Strategies in Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Promising Therapeutic Approach

Min Wei et al. Int J Nanomedicine. .

Abstract

Neurodegeneration is characterized by progressive, disabling, and incurable neurological disorders with the massive loss of specific neurons. As one of the most promising potential therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases, stem cell therapy exerts beneficial effects through different mechanisms, such as direct replacement of damaged or lost cells, secretion of neurotrophic and growth factors, decreased neuroinflammation, and activation of endogenous stem cells. However, poor survival and differentiation rates of transplanted stem cells, insufficient homing ability, and difficulty tracking after transplantation limit their further clinical use. The rapid development of nanotechnology provides many promising nanomaterials for biomedical applications, which already have many applications in neurodegenerative disease treatment and seem to be able to compensate for some of the deficiencies in stem cell therapy, such as transport of stem cells/genes/drugs, regulating stem cell differentiation, and real-time tracking in stem cell therapy. Therefore, nanotherapeutic strategies combined with stem cell therapy is a promising therapeutic approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases. The present review systematically summarizes recent advances in stem cell therapeutics and nanotherapeutic strategies and highlights how they can be combined to improve therapeutic efficacy for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: nanomaterials; nanotherapeutic; neurodegenerative diseases; stem cell therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Advantages and limitations of various types of stem cells in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Various novel nanomaterials for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic illustration of the cooperation of nanomaterials and stem cell therapies for brain repair in neurodegenerative diseases.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic representation of the application of nanomaterials in stem cell therapy of neurodegenerative diseases.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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