Stem Cell-Based Therapy for COVID-19
Introduction
The Novel Corona virus has become a global pandemic since patients were first detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019.As of September 7, 2020, the Novel Corona virus has infected 2.73 Crore people in the world. It causes mild respiratory tract infection, cough and fever in most of the patients. However, the majority of patients are accompanied by pneumonia. As of now, we don’t have any vaccine to deal with this global pandemic. Current studies suggest that there exists cytokine storm in COVID-19-infected patients, due to which some of the patients will develop acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiple organ failure, sometimes even death.
Present scenario
Lung injury caused by COVID-19 poses a major clinical management challenge because there is no specific treatment/drug that has been approved. Various researchers offered an alternative promising therapy for COVID-19, that is, Mesenchymal Stem Cell transplantation.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) are a well‐characterized type of adult stem cells with ideal differentiation, proliferative and immunomodulatory properties. MSCs regenerate and repair damaged tissues by secretion of various bioactive molecules to stimulate resident cells. MSCs are well known for its promising anti‐inflammatory properties. Various studies have shown that the immunomodulatory properties of MSCs help in modulation of activation, proliferation and function of various immune cells and thus are able to alter the innate and adaptive immune responses. MSCs were first used in China and were proved effective against COVID-19. Adult stem cells can be isolated from neonatal sources such as cord tissue, cord blood, placenta and menstrual blood as well as adult tissues such as adipose tissue, bone marrow and peripheral blood. MSCs do not have any ethical issues and are available for autologous or allogeneic use. Autologous stem cells are usually preferred for stem cell‐based therapies for COVID-19. There are three types of COVID-19 patients- Critically ill young patients, Critically ill older patients and those patients who are at high risk of infection due to comorbidities.
Conclusion
Stem Cell therapy should be used accordingly on these patients. The selection of a suitable stem cell source and type is important for the treatment of COVID‐19 patients. MSCs are multipotent and could be cryopreserved for multiple uses and thus are readily available any time.
References
https://stemcellres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13287-020-01699-3
