Therapeutic Potentials of Mesenchymal Stem Cell-derived Extracellular VesiclesTuesday, 12 July 2016 at 11:45 Add to Calendar ▼2016-07-12 11:45:002016-07-12 12:45:00Europe/LondonTherapeutic Potentials of Mesenchymal Stem Cell-derived Extracellular VesiclesExtracellular Vesicles 2016 in Cambridge. UKCambridge. UKSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com MSCs have been used to treat a variety of different diseases such as myocardial infarction, stroke and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). Initially, MSCs were thought to replace lost cells in damaged tissues. Despite contrary reports regarding the outcome of MSC treatments, MSCs seem to exert their beneficial effects by the secretion of immunosuppressive factors and/or small extracellular vesicles (EVs, 70-150 nm), such as exosomes and microvesicles, rather than by interacting into affected tissues. After setting up techniques for the characterization and large scale preparation of EVs, we have treated a steroid-refractory GvHD patient with EVs/exosomes enriched from MSC supernatants (MSC-EVs). In addition we investigate the MSC-EVs’ therapeutic potential to exert neuroprotective functions in animal models for ischemic stroke and preterm brain injury. So far, we observed beneficial effects in all settings. In the murine stroke model we performed a side by side comparison of the therapeutic effect of MSCs and their EVs and did not recognize any differences, both improved the symptoms significantly. At the functional level MSC-EVs were shown to exert immunosuppressive functions in vivo and in vitro. |