间充质干细胞治疗椎间盘退变的研究进展

Research progress of mesenchymal stem cell therapy for regeneration of degenerated intervertebral discs

下腰痛已严重影响了人们的工作和生活,带来了严重的经济负担和社会负担。下腰痛主要是由椎间盘退变性疾病引起,保守治疗和手术治疗是目前临床上治疗椎间盘退变的常用方法,但这些方法仅限于缓解症状,而无法从根本上扭转椎间盘退变。人们已经开始关注通过恢复椎间盘细胞的数量和功能,从而实现生物学修复椎间盘退变的目的。间充质干细胞可分化为髓核样细胞,这为利用干细胞治疗椎间盘退变提供了种子细胞。间充质干细胞与椎间盘细胞的共培养技术也为此提供了可行的方法。目前这种方法也仅限于临床前研究,还有许多问题需要解决,例如:如何确定髓核细胞表型、如何避免干细胞的渗漏和肿瘤形成等。

Intervertebral disc degeneration(IVD) represents the main cause of the low-back pain that affects the majority of the adult population, and causes major social and economic costs. Physical therapy and spinal fusion as the major treatment for IVD degeneration only can relieve symptoms, but can not reverse IVD degeneration. People had begun to pay attention to the number and functional recovery of intervertebral disc cells, to achieve the goal of reversing the degeneration of intervertebral disc. Adult mesenchymal stem cells(MSC) can be differentiated into nucleus pulposus like cells, which provide seed cells for the treatment of IVD. MSC and intervertebral disc cells co-culture technology also provides a feasible method. At present, the use of MSC for IVD degeneration is limited to pre-clinical research, and many problems need to be solved. For example, how to determine the phenotype of nucleus pulposus cells, how to avoid the leakage of stem cells and tumor formation.