Stem cells: their source, potency and use in regenerative therapies with focus on adipose-derived stem cells - a review.

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)

Stem cells can be defined as units of biological organization that are responsible for the development and the regeneration of organ and tissue systems. They are able to renew their populations and to differentiate into multiple cell lineages. Therefore, these cells have great potential in advanced tissue engineering and cell therapies. When seeded on synthetic or nature-derived scaffolds in vitro, stem cells can be differentiated towards the desired phenotype by an appropriate composition, by an appropriate architecture, and by appropriate physicochemical and mechanical properties of the scaffolds, particularly if the scaffold properties are combined with a suitable composition of cell culture media, and with suitable mechanical, electrical or magnetic stimulation. For cell therapy, stem cells can be injected directly into damaged tissues and organs in vivo. Since the regenerative effect of stem cells is based mainly on the autocrine production of growth factors, immunomodulators and other bioactive molecules stored in extracellular vesicles, these structures can be isolated and used instead of cells for a novel therapeutic approach called "stem cell-based cell-free therapy". There are four main sources of stem cells, i.e. embryonic tissues, fetal tissues, adult tissues and differentiated somatic cells after they have been genetically reprogrammed, which are referred to as ind

Evidence level

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

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