Considerations for the clinical use of stem cells in genitourinary regenerative medicine

The genitourinary tract can be affected by several pathologies which require repair or replacement to recover biological functions.Current therapeutic strategies are challenged by a growing shortage of adequate tissues.Therefore,new options must be considered for the treatment of patients,with the use of stem cells(SCs)being attractive.Two different strategies can be derived from stem cell use:Cell therapy and tissue therapy,mainly through tissue engineering.The recent advances using these approaches are described in this review,with a focus on stromal/mesenchymal cells found in adipose tissue.Indeed,the accessibility,high yield at harvest as well as anti-fibrotic,immunomodulatory and proangiogenic properties make adipose-derived stromal/SCs promising alternatives to the therapies currently offered to patients.Finally,an innovative technique allowing tissue reconstruction without exogenous material,the self-assembly approach,will be presented.Despite advances,more studies are needed to translate such approaches from the bench to clinics in urology.For the 21st century,cell and tissue therapies based on SCs are certainly the future of genitourinary regenerative medicine.

Probiotics to counteract biofilm-associated infections: promising and conflicting data

Altered bowel flora is currently thought to play a role in a variety of disease conditions, and the use of Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp. as probiotics has been demonstrated to be health-promoting, even if the success of their administration depends on the applied bacterial strain（s） and the targeted disease. In the last few decades, specific probiotics have been shown to be effective in the treatment or the prevention of acute viral gastroenteritis, pediatric post-antibiotic-associated diarrhea, some pediatric allergic disorders, necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants, inflammatory bowel diseases and postsurgical pouchitis. The potential application of probiotics is continuously widening, with new evidence accumulating to support their effect on the prevention and treatment of other disease conditions, including several oral diseases, such as dental caries, periodontal diseases and oral malodor, as well as genitourinary and wound infections. Considering the increasingly widespread ability of pathogens to generate persistent biofilm-related infections, an even more attractive proposal is to administer probiotics to prevent or counteract biofilm development.The response of biofilm-based oral, intestinal, vaginal and wound infections to probiotics treatment will be reviewed here in light of the most recent results obtained in this field.

Urine-derived stem cells:A novel and versatile progenitor source for cell-based therapy and regenerative medicine

Engineered functional organs or tissues,created with autologous somatic cells and seeded on biodegradable or hydrogel scaffolds,have been developed for use in individualswith tissue damage suffered fromcongenital disorders,infection,irradiation,or cancer.However,in those patients,abnormal cells obtained by biopsy fromthe compromised tissue could potentially contaminate the engineered tissues.Thus,an alternative cell source for construction of the neo-organ or functional recovery of the injured or diseased tissues would be useful.Recently,we have found stem cells existing in the urine.These cells are highly expandable,and have self-renewal capacity,paracrine properties,and multi-differentiation potential.As a novel cell source,urine-derived stem cells(USCs)provide advantages for cell therapy and tissue engineering applications in regeneration of various tissues,particularly in the genitourinary tract,because they originate from the urinary tract system.Importantly,USCs can be obtained via a non-invasive,simple,and low-cost approach and induced with high efficiency to differentiate into three dermal cell lineages.