Barros Inês, Marcelo Adriana, Silva Teresa P, Barata João, Rufino-Ramos David, Pereira de Almeida Luís, Miranda Catarina O
CNC-Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
CIBB-Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Front Cell Neurosci. 2020 Oct 6;14:584277. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2020.584277. eCollection 2020.
Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases are a group of inherited neurodegenerative disorders caused by the expansion of the cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) repeat. This mutation encodes extended glutamine (Q) tract in the disease protein, resulting in the alteration of its conformation/physiological role and in the formation of toxic fragments/aggregates of the protein. This group of heterogeneous disorders shares common molecular mechanisms, which opens the possibility to develop a pan therapeutic approach. Vast efforts have been made to develop strategies to alleviate disease symptoms. Nonetheless, there is still no therapy that can cure or effectively delay disease progression of any of these disorders. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) are promising tools for the treatment of polyQ disorders, promoting protection, tissue regeneration, and/or modulation of the immune system in animal models. Accordingly, data collected from clinical trials have so far demonstrated that transplantation of MSC is safe and delays the progression of some polyQ disorders for some time. However, to achieve sustained phenotypic amelioration in clinics, several treatments may be necessary. Therefore, efforts to develop new strategies to improve MSC's therapeutic outcomes have been emerging. In this review article, we discuss the current treatments and strategies used to reduce polyQ symptoms and major pre-clinical and clinical achievements obtained with MSC transplantation as well as remaining flaws that need to be overcome. The requirement to cross the blood-brain-barrier (BBB), together with a short rate of cell engraftment in the lesioned area and low survival of MSC in a pathophysiological context upon transplantation may contribute to the transient therapeutic effects. We also review methods like pre-conditioning or genetic engineering of MSC that can be used to increase MSC survival , cellular-free approaches-i.e., MSC-conditioned medium (CM) or MSC-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) as a way of possibly replacing the use of MSC and methods required to standardize the potential of MSC/MSC-derived products. These are fundamental questions that need to be addressed to obtain maximum MSC performance in polyQ diseases and therefore increase clinical benefits.
聚谷氨酰胺(polyQ)疾病是一组由胞嘧啶 - 腺嘌呤 - 鸟嘌呤(CAG)重复序列扩增引起的遗传性神经退行性疾病。这种突变在疾病蛋白中编码延伸的谷氨酰胺(Q)序列,导致其构象/生理作用改变,并形成该蛋白的有毒片段/聚集体。这组异质性疾病具有共同的分子机制,这为开发一种泛治疗方法提供了可能性。人们已经付出巨大努力来制定减轻疾病症状的策略。然而,仍然没有一种疗法能够治愈或有效延缓这些疾病中的任何一种的疾病进展。间充质基质细胞(MSC)是治疗polyQ疾病的有前景的工具,在动物模型中可促进保护、组织再生和/或调节免疫系统。因此,到目前为止从临床试验收集的数据表明,MSC移植是安全的,并且能在一段时间内延缓某些polyQ疾病的进展。然而,为了在临床上实现持续的表型改善,可能需要几种治疗方法。因此,开发新策略以改善MSC治疗效果的努力不断涌现。在这篇综述文章中,我们讨论了目前用于减轻polyQ症状的治疗方法和策略,以及MSC移植取得的主要临床前和临床成果,以及仍需克服的缺陷。穿过血脑屏障(BBB)的要求,以及损伤区域细胞植入率低和移植后病理生理环境中MSC存活率低,可能导致治疗效果短暂。我们还综述了可用于提高MSC存活率的预处理或基因工程等方法、无细胞方法,即MSC条件培养基(CM)或MSC衍生的细胞外囊泡(EVs),作为可能替代使用MSC的方法,以及标准化MSC/MSC衍生产品潜力所需的方法。这些是在polyQ疾病中获得最大MSC性能并因此增加临床益处需要解决的基本问题。