How Adult Stem Cell Therapies Work

An adult stem cell therapy for acute renal failure (ARF) provides insight into how these first generation therapies work. EurekAlert reports that transplanted stem cells are only present briefly, but administer a swift, positive kick to the local environment: "Administered stem cells don't stay in the kidney that has ARF long enough to differentiate into kidney cells, but rather appear to alter the course of ARF by a number of identifiable and some still unexplored paracrine mechanisms. The former include the induction of organ-protective and repair-supporting genes in surviving renal cells, robust suppression of proinflammatory cytokines in the ARF kidney and upregulation of anti-inflammatory genes, as well as the delivery and release at the site of injury of organ-protective and other beneficial gene products by the stem cells."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/aps-scb081105.php

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