Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are searching for a novel stem cell based therapeutic strategy that will allow for efficient treatment or even potential replacement of damaged organs.
The derivation of dopaminergic neurons from induced pluripotent stem cells brings new hope for a patient-specific, stem cell-based replacement therapy to treat Parkinson's disease (PD) and related neurodegenerative diseases; and this novel cell-based approach has already proven effective in animal models.
However, one of the main issues in stem cell-based replacement therapy in neurology is to assess whether functional neurons are the final product of stem cell differentiation [10].
Similarly, understanding how the Gata3 Mafb cascade is deployed will be critical for the development of stem cell-based replacement therapies.
We therefore propose that comparison of cellular fitness between damaged and intact tissue may be a common mechanism during regeneration and relevant for stem cell-based replacement therapies after injury.
Novel approaches for the treatment of enteric neuropathies are therefore needed and in this respect, stem cell-based replacement of dead or malfunctioning enteric neurons is a promising therapeutic tool [ 4, 5].
The capacity of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to self-propagate in vitro and differentiate into functional neurons in response to extrinsic cues has raised the hope that neurodegenerative diseases in which specific subtypes of neurons progressively degenerate could be treated by stem cell-based replacement strategies.
In this study, we observed that low oxygen tensions drastically increased the number and size of sphere formation, as well as the SP fraction in cochlear spiral ganglion SPCs, indicating that ex vivo expansion of spiral ganglion SPCs under hypoxia may be practically applied for the large-scale production and maintenance of SPCs for stem cell-based replacement therapy.
Congenital and acquired intra and extra-oral soft and hard tissue defects could also be effectively managed or treated with stem-cell based approaches and future tooth replacements in the form of ' a new natural tooth' now seem like a possibility.
It is currently lobbying widely for the development of stem cell research based on other sources, like umbilical cord or adult stem cells.
Diagnostic imaging serves to precisely monitor disease onset and progression while neural stem cell replacement can regenerate damaged tissue through control of stem cell fates.
