Intravenous injection of mesenchymal stem cell spheroids improves the pulmonary delivery and prolongs in vivo survival.

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Because of the excellent therapeutic potential, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been used as cell therapeutics for various diseases. However, the survival rate and duration of MSCs after transplantation are extremely low and short, respectively. To solve these problems, in this study, we prepared multicellular spheroids of MSCs and investigated their survival and function after intravenous injection in mice. The murine adipose-derived MSC line m17.ASC was cultured in agarose-based microwell plates to obtain size-controlled m17.ASC spheroids of an average diameter and cell number of approximately 170 μm and 1100 cells/spheroid, respectively. The intravenously injected m17.ASC spheroids mainly accumulated in the lung and showed a higher survival rate than suspended m17.ASC cells during the experimental period of 7 days. m17.ASC spheroids efficiently reduced the lipopolysaccharide-induced increase in plasma concentrations of interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α. These results indicate that spheroid formation improved the pulmonary delivery and survival of MSCs, as well as their therapeutic potential against inflammatory pulmonary diseases.

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.