do Prado-Lima PAS, Costa-Ferro ZSM, Souza BSF, da Cruz IBM, Lab B. Is there a place for cellular therapy in depression? World J Psychiatr 2021; 11(9): 553-567 [PMID: 34631460 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i9.553]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Pedro Antônio Schmidt do Prado-Lima, PhD, Academic Research, Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (BraIns), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Ipiranga 6690, Porto Alegre 90610-000, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. paspl@uol.com.br
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
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 Psychiatr. Sep 19, 2021; 11(9): 553-567 Published online Sep 19, 2021. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i9.553
Is there a place for cellular therapy in depression?
Pedro Antônio Schmidt do Prado-Lima, Zaquer Suzana Munhoz Costa-Ferro, Bruno Solano de Freitas Souza, Ivana Beatrice Manica da Cruz, Biogenomics Lab
Pedro Antônio Schmidt do Prado-Lima, Zaquer Suzana Munhoz Costa-Ferro, Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (BraIns), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre 90610-000, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Zaquer Suzana Munhoz Costa-Ferro, Bruno Solano de Freitas Souza, Center for Biotechnology and Cell Therapy, São Rafael Hospital, Salvador 41253-190, Bahia, Brazil
Zaquer Suzana Munhoz Costa-Ferro, Bruno Solano de Freitas Souza, D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Salvador 41253-190, Bahia, Brazil
Bruno Solano de Freitas Souza, Laboratory of Tissue Engineering and Immunopharmacology, Gonçalo Moniz Institute, Fiocruz, Salvador 40296-710, Bahia, Brazil
Ivana Beatrice Manica da Cruz, Biogenomics Lab, Health Sciences Center, Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa Maria 97105900, RS, Brazil
Author contributions: do Prado-Lima PAS was responsible for the overall organization of the manuscript structure and writing and reviewing the epidemiological part of depression and the inflammatory role in this psychiatric disorder for the survey and comments related to clinical trials involving stem cell depression that are in progress; Costa-Ferro ZSM and Souza BSDF were responsible for compiling, organizing, and description of the tables related to the main studies involving stem cells in depression and other associated diseases; da Cruz IBM was also responsible for reviewing the neuroinflammatory aspects related to depression, the general organization of the figure, formatting, and submission of the manuscript; all authors contributed to the general writing, revising the text, and scientific quality of the manuscript.
Supported byConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico -CNPq.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Pedro Antônio Schmidt do Prado-Lima, PhD, Academic Research, Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (BraIns), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Ipiranga 6690, Porto Alegre 90610-000, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. paspl@uol.com.br
Received: February 28, 2021 Peer-review started: February 28, 2021 First decision: April 20, 2021 Revised: May 5, 2021 Accepted: August 13, 2021 Article in press: August 13, 2021 Published online: September 19, 2021 Processing time: 199 Days and 8 Hours
Abstract
Although efforts have been made to improve the pharmacological treatment of depression, approximately one-third of patients with depression do not respond to conventional therapy using antidepressants. Other potential non-pharmacological therapies have been studied in the last years, including the use of mesenchymal stem cell therapies to treat depression. These therapies are reviewed here since it is clinically relevant to develop innovative therapeutics to treat psychiatric patients. Experimental data corroborate that mesenchymal stem cell therapy could be considered a potential treatment for depression based on its anti-inflammatory and neurotrophic properties. However, some clinical trials involving treatment of depression with stem cells are in progress, but with no published results. These studies and other future clinical investigations will be crucial to define how much mesenchymal stem cells can effectively be used in psychiatric clinics as a strategy for supporting depression treatment.
Core Tip: In this study, the authors performed a narrative review regarding the role of inflammation in depression and investigated the evidence suggesting that the use of stem cell therapies could be a realistic, safe, and effective strategy for treating depression.
