Mesenchymal stem cell-mediated cancer therapy: A dual- targeted strategy of personalized medicine

Xu-Yong Sun, Jiang Nong, Ke Qin, Garth L Warnock, Long-Jun Dai
 

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of mortality
and morbidity throughout the world. To a significant
extent, current conventional cancer therapies are
symptomatic and passive in nature. The major obstacle
to the development of effective cancer therapy is be lieved to be the absence of sufficient specificity.

Since the discovery of the tumor-oriented homing capacity
of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the application of
specific anticancer gene-engineered MSCs has held
great potential for cancer therapies. The dual-targeted
strategy is based on MSCs’ capacity of tumor-directed
migration and incorporation and in situ expression of
tumor-specific anticancer genes. With the aim of translating
bench work into meaningful clinical applications,
we describe the tumor tropism of MSCs and their use
as therapeutic vehicles, the dual-targeted anticancer
potential of engineered MSCs and a putative personalized
strategy with anticancer gene-engineered MSCs.