The role of microenvironment stromal cells in regenerative medicine

Regenerative medicine offers the potential for treatment and possibly cures debilitating diseases including heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and liver failure. Approaches using stem cells from various sources are in preclinical and clinical testing. The goal of these studies is to deliver cellular products capable of replacing damaged tissue and/or cells. However, the balance between cellular proliferation and differentiation is a carefully controlled process involving a range of growth factors and cytokines produced in large part by tissue stromal cells. These stromal cells make up the tissue microenvironment and appear to be essential for normal homeostasis. We hypothesize that tissue damage in many instances involves damage to the microenvironment resulting in a lack of signals through growth factor networks necessary to maintain survival and proliferation of tissue-specific stem cells and progenitor cells. Therefore, optimal repair of disease tissue must account for the damage to the stromal environment and will require reconstitution of the microenvironment to support the survival, proliferation, and differentiation of the tissue-specific stem cells or progenitor cells. Further, stromal cells from different tissues have distinct gene profiles and so a homologous source of stromal cells would minimize potential differences that could result in unwanted toxicities or biological effects.