The DOI matches its Crossref record; 72 of the 72 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Time to Change the Name!
Open accessAbstract
Summary: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were officially named more than 25 years ago to represent a class of cells from human and mammalian bone marrow and periosteum that could be isolated and expanded in culture while maintaining their in vitro capacity to be induced to form a variety of mesodermal phenotypes and tissues. The in vitro capacity to form bone, cartilage, fat, etc., became an assay for identifying this class of multipotent cells and around which several companies were formed in the 1990s to medically exploit the regenerative capabilities of MSCs. Today, there are hundreds of clinics and hundreds of clinical trials using human MSCs with very few, if any, focusing on the in vitro multipotential capacities of these cells. Unfortunately, the fact that MSCs are called “stem cells” is being used to infer that patients will receive direct medical benefit, because they imagine that these cells will differentiate into regenerating tissue-producing cells. Such a stem cell treatment will presumably cure the patient of their medically relevant difficulties ranging from osteoarthritic (bone-on-bone) knees to various neurological maladies including dementia. I now urge that we change the name of MSCs to Medicinal Signaling Cells to more accurately reflect the fact that these cells home in on sites of injury or disease and secrete bioactive factors that are immunomodulatory and trophic (regenerative) meaning that these cells make therapeutic drugs in situ that are medicinal. It is, indeed, the patient's own site-specific and tissue-specific resident stem cells that construct the new tissue as stimulated by the bioactive factors secreted by the exogenously supplied MSCs.
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Cites
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Self-citation
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Cited by
Stem cell-based therapy for human diseases
Hoang, D. M., Pham, P. T., Bach, T. Q., Ngo, A. T. L., Nguyen, Q. T., Phan, T. T. K., Nguyen, G. H., Le, P. T. T., Hoang, V. T., Forsyth, N. R., et al. (2022) · Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy · doi:10.1038/s41392-022-01134-4 · Cited by 1,074
Viswanathan, S., Shi, Y., Galipeau, J., Krampera, M., Leblanc, K., Martin, I., Nolta, J., Phinney, D. G., & Sensebe, L. (2019) · Cytotherapy · doi:10.1016/j.jcyt.2019.08.002 · Cited by 839
Neuroinflammation in Alzheimer disease
Heneka, M. T., van der Flier, W. M., Jessen, F., Hoozemanns, J., Thal, D. R., Boche, D., Brosseron, F., Teunissen, C., Zetterberg, H., Jacobs, A. H., et al. (2025) · Nature Reviews Immunology · doi:10.1038/s41577-024-01104-7 · Cited by 638
Biological functions of mesenchymal stem cells and clinical implications
Naji, A., Eitoku, M., Favier, B., Deschaseaux, F., Rouas-Freiss, N., & Suganuma, N. (2019) · Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences · doi:10.1007/s00018-019-03125-1 · Cited by 624
Clinical application of mesenchymal stem cell in regenerative medicine: a narrative review
Margiana, R., Markov, A., Zekiy, A. O., Hamza, M. U., Al-Dabbagh, K. A., Al-Zubaidi, S. H., Hameed, N. M., Ahmad, I., Sivaraman, R., Kzar, H. H., et al. (2022) · Stem Cell Research & Therapy · doi:10.1186/s13287-022-03054-0 · Cited by 429
Metadata
- Authors
- Caplan, A. I.
- Venue
- Stem Cells Translational Medicine
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2017-04-28
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1445-1451
- ISSN
- 2157-6564 (ISSN-L)
- 2157-6580
- OpenAlex
- W2608209876
- Cited by
- 1,119
- References
- 72
- FWCI
- 48.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- Virginia and David Baldwin Fund
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