Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent stem cells with self-renewal and multilineage differentiation properties. They exist in almost all tissues and are a very diverse populations in regard to morphology and phenotypes. MSCs are becoming more and more important, because of their recently discovered immunomodulatory properties, resulting from interactions with cells of innate and adaptive immune systems. MSCs secrete various bioactive molecules, such as cytokines, growth factors and chemokines, which affect various physiological processes. MSCs can also migrate to sites of inflammation, where they can act immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory and are involved in tissue repair. MSCs can modulate various functions of activated T cells, B cells, natural killer cells (NK), dendritic cells (DC) and macrophages. Because MSCs are non-immunogenic, they have an excellent therapeutic potential and could be used for allogenic treatment of autoimmune diseases, using immunomodulation. At present MSCs therapies are being tested for treatment of various diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Crohn's disease (CD), graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and type 1 diabetes.
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