Habib SM, Martini MF, Abu-Hamdan YNH, Shrebaty OMM, Haider KH. Mesenchymal stem cell secretome and exosomes as potential advanced therapy medicinal products for treating a failing heart. World J Stem Cells 2026; 18(7): 113871 [DOI: 10.4252/wjsc.113871]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Khawaja Husnain Haider, BSc, BPharm, MPharm, PhD, KOSEF Fellow, Professor, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman Alrajhi Medical School, PO Box 777, Al Bukairiyah 51941, Saudi Arabia. khhaider@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Cell & Tissue Engineering
Article-Type of This Article
editorial
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Stem Cells. Jul 26, 2026; 18(7): 113871 Published online Jul 26, 2026. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.113871
Mesenchymal stem cell secretome and exosomes as potential advanced therapy medicinal products for treating a failing heart
Khawaja Husnain Haider, Omran Mohammed Marwan Shrebaty, Yacoub Nail Hamdan Abu-Hamdan, Mohammad Fateh Martini, Syed Mohammad Habib
Syed Mohammad Habib, Mohammad Fateh Martini, Yacoub Nail Hamdan Abu-Hamdan, Omran Mohammed Marwan Shrebaty, Khawaja Husnain Haider, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman Alrajhi Medical School, Al Bukairiyah 51941, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: Habib SM and Haider KH conceptualized and presented the idea; Habib SM, Martini MF, Abu-Hamdan YNH, Shrebaty OMM, and Haider KH drafted the manuscript and tables; Habib SM and Haider KH took the lead; Habib SM prepared the illustrations and proofread the manuscript; Haider KH contributed by providing critical feedback, helped shape the research, planning, and prepared the final manuscript for submission.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Corresponding author: Khawaja Husnain Haider, BSc, BPharm, MPharm, PhD, KOSEF Fellow, Professor, Department of Basic Sciences, Sulaiman Alrajhi Medical School, PO Box 777, Al Bukairiyah 51941, Saudi Arabia. khhaider@gmail.com
Received: September 5, 2025 Revised: November 17, 2025 Accepted: January 27, 2026 Published online: July 26, 2026 Processing time: 320 Days and 3.6 Hours
Abstract
Heart failure results in impaired cardiac systolic and/or diastolic functions. Traditional pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches provide, at best, only short-term symptomatic relief, and the long-term prognosis remains poor. Regenerative medicine, particularly mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), presents a promising alternative for cardiac repair. Ye and Liu published a study in the recent issue of World Journal of Stem Cell highlights the cell-free therapy approach, focusing on the therapeutic potential of MSC-derived paracrine secretions, which exert crucial pleiotropic effects on cardiac repair and regeneration. Their mechanisms involve the seven primary modules that promote angiogenesis, inhibit apoptosis, reduce oxidative stress, modulate inflammatory responses, facilitate cardiomyogenesis, and reduce myocardial fibrosis. Furthermore, their complex repair mechanisms, regenerative pathways, and emerging strategies, which bring us a step closer to their clinical translation, have been discussed as part of the future perspective. While MSC-derived secretomes and exosomes show immense promise for myocardial reparability and improving cardiac function, further research is warranted to fully understand their roles, optimize techniques, and establish their safety and effectiveness for clinical use.
Core Tip: This paper reviews advancements in the treatment and management of heart failure through cell-free therapies, including mesenchymal stem cell-derived secretomes and exosomes that deliver an array of bioactive molecules and participate in the repair process. The seven primary modules, which explain the reparative and regenerative potential of secretome and exosomes, have been discussed in the context of mechanistic understanding, drawing on published data from experimental and clinical settings that act on the myocardium to achieve the therapeutic benefits of the treatment.
