Immunomodulatory Effect of Mesenchymal Stem Cells on B Cells

作者：Marcella Franquesa, M.J. Hoogduijn, Oriol Bestard, Josep Maria Grinyo · 发表于：Frontiers in Immunology · 年份：2012 · DOI：10.3389/fimmu.2012.00212 · 被引用次数：181 · 研究领域：Mesenchymal stem cell research、RNA Interference and Gene Delivery、Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

The research on T cell immunosuppression therapies has attracted most of the attention in clinical transplantation. However, B cells and humoral immune responses are increasingly acknowledged as crucial mediators of chronic allograft rejection. Indeed, humoral immune responses can lead to renal allograft rejection even in patients whose cell-mediated immune responses are well controlled. On the other hand, newly studied B cell subsets with regulatory effects have been linked to tolerance achievement in transplantation. Better understanding of the regulatory and effector B cell responses may therefore lead to new therapeutic approaches. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are arising as a potent therapeutic tool in transplantation due to their regenerative and immunomodulatory properties. The research on MSCs has mainly focused on their effects on T cells and although data regarding the modulatory effects of MSCs on alloantigen-specific humoral response in humans is scarce, it has been demonstrated that MSCs significantly affect B cell functioning. In the present review we will analyze and discuss the results in this field.