The major limitation of cancer therapeutic strategies is the lack of tumor specificity. Understanding the conditions that balance GVHD and the GVT effect of MSCs may be crucial to advance cancer therapy research with respect to MSCs.Ĭancer is a highly prevalent, life-threatening disease that affects people around the world.
Selective allodepletion may be used to dissociate GVHD from the GVT effect. On the other hand, MSCs elicit the graft-versus-tumor (GVT) effect in some cases. MSCs have been reported to suppress T-cell function and inhibit graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The conflicting roles of MSCs in tumor progression may be attributable to the bimodal effect of unmodified MSCs on immunoregulation. In this review, we describe the heterogeneity of MSCs by the species from which they are derived, the methodology for their isolation and the context of their interactions with cancer cells. The surface markers, differentiation ability, and tumorigenic roles of MSCs, as well as their effect on immunoregulation, produce heterogeneity. The reasons for this discrepancy are still unknown. Surprisingly, there are conflicting reports within the literature describing both the promotion and inhibition of cancer progression by MSCs. However, there remains a concern that MSCs may promote cancer progression.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are emerging as promising gene vectors for cancer therapy because of their unique characteristics, including the ease of their expansion and genetic modification and their remarkable tumor-tropic properties.