Published online Aug 26, 2019. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v11.i8.452
Peer-review started: February 27, 2019
First decision: June 5, 2019
Revised: July 4, 2019
Accepted: July 16, 2019
Article in press: July 16, 2019
Published online: August 26, 2019
Processing time: 182 Days and 5.3 Hours
Ischemic stroke is a critical disease which causes serious neurological functional loss such as paresis. Hope for novel therapies is based on the increasing evidence of the presence of stem cell populations in the central nervous system (CNS) and the development of stem-cell-based therapies for stroke patients. Although mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represented initially a promising cell source, only a few transplanted MSCs were present near the injured areas of the CNS. Thus, regional stem cells that are present and/or induced in the CNS may be ideal when considering a treatment following ischemic stroke. In this context, we have recently showed that injury/ischemia-induced neural stem/progenitor cells (iNSPCs) and injury/ischemia-induced multipotent stem cells (iSCs) are present within post-stroke human brains and post-stroke mouse brains. This indicates that iNSPCs/iSCs could be developed for clinical applications treating patients with stroke. The present study introduces the traits of mouse and human iNSPCs, with a focus on the future perspective for CNS regenerative therapies using novel iNSPCs/iSCs.
Core tip: Ischemic stroke is a critical disease that is accompanied by serious symptoms, such as paresis. Until recently, it was believed that areas affected by stroke mainly consist of necrotic and inflammatory cells. However, we have recently demonstrated that novel ischemia-induced stem cells can be isolated from not only mouse brains after stroke but also human brains after stroke. These stem cells exhibited the multipotency and differentiated into electrophysiologically functional neurons. In this article, we introduce the future perspectives for patients suffering from ischemic stroke using these regionally derived stem cells.