Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Jun 26, 2024; 16(6): 623-640
Published online Jun 26, 2024. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v16.i6.623
Priming mesenchymal stem cells to develop “super stem cells”
Khawaja Husnain Haider
Khawaja Husnain Haider, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman AlRajhi University, AlQaseem 52736, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: Haider KH conceived and wrote, read, revised, and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author reports no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Khawaja Husnain Haider, BPharm, BSc, PhD, Chairman, Full Professor, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman AlRajhi University, AlMadina Road, AlQaseem 52736, Saudi Arabia. kh.haider@sr.edu.sa
Received: April 2, 2024
Revised: May 4, 2024
Accepted: May 20, 2024
Published online: June 26, 2024
Processing time: 83 Days and 11.9 Hours
Abstract

The stem cell pre-treatment approaches at cellular and sub-cellular levels encompass physical manipulation of stem cells to growth factor treatment, genetic manipulation, and chemical and pharmacological treatment, each strategy having advantages and limitations. Most of these pre-treatment protocols are non-combinative. This editorial is a continuum of Li et al’s published article and Wan et al’s editorial focusing on the significance of pre-treatment strategies to enhance their stemness, immunoregulatory, and immunosuppressive properties. They have elaborated on the intricacies of the combinative pre-treatment protocol using pro-inflammatory cytokines and hypoxia. Applying a well-defined multi-pronged combinatorial strategy of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), pre-treatment based on the mechanistic understanding is expected to develop “Super MSCs”, which will create a transformative shift in MSC-based therapies in clinical settings, potentially revolutionizing the field. Once optimized, the standardized protocols may be used with slight modifications to pre-treat different stem cells to develop “super stem cells” with augmented stemness, functionality, and reparability for diverse clinical applications with better outcomes.

Keywords: Cell survival; Cell therapy; Preconditioning; Pre-treatment; Stem cells; Super stem cells

Core Tip: Stem cell pre-treatment is a promising approach for accentuating their stemness and reparability and improving their resistance to apoptosis in the harsh microenvironment of the injured tissue. The current stem cell pre-treatment protocols allow for enhancing their therapeutic efficacy to surmount the limitations of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), i.e., mobility, survival, engraftment, and paracrine activity. Besides a novel sub-cellular preconditioning strategy, the combinative preconditioning approach exposing the cells to a proinflammatory milieu under hypoxia improves MSCs’ immunoregulatory potential. Refining a combinatorial pre-treatment protocol using a well-defined mechanistic understanding may allow the exploitation of the full benefits of the pre-treated “super MSCs” for enhanced stemness, functionality, and reparability, including immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory properties.