Regenerative therapy for neuronal diseases with transplantation of somatic stem cells

Pluripotent stem cells are hoped to be donor cells in transplantation in regenerative medicine because of their capability to differentiate in various species of cells. Somatic stem cells have been used as donor cells for neuronal diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinal cord injury, Alzheimer disease, cerebral infarction and congenital neuronal diseases. Recent progress of regenerative therapies using various somatic stem cells is described. The regenerative effect of transplantation of somatic stem cells is considered to be mostly derived from trophic factors secreted from somatic stem cells.

• 1
  Ectodermal stem cells and mesodermal (mesenchymal) stem cells potentially differentiate to neurons, while it seems that endodermal stem cells do not differentiate to neurons without dedifferentiation or induction to iPS cells.
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  Being different from iPS cells, these stem cells do not basically transform or dedifferentiate to cancer cells. The clinical application of somatic stem cells has a greater advantage than iPS cells.
• 3
  Non-treated somatic stem cells seldom differentiate to neural cells in recipient neural tissue. Therefore, the contribution to neuronal regeneration using non-treated somatic stem cells has been poor