Nanotherapeutic and Stem Cell Therapeutic Strategies in Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Promising Therapeutic Approach

Abstract

Min Wei,1 Zhaofei Yang,1 Song Li,1 Weidong Le1,2 1Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory for Research on the Pathogenic Mechanisms of Neurological Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116021, People’s Republic of China; 2Institute of Neurology, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, Chengdu, 610072, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Weidong Le, Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory for Research on the Pathogenic Mechanisms of Neurological Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, 116021, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: Neurodegeneration is characterized by progressive, disabling, and incurable neurological disorders with the massive loss of specific neurons. As one of the most promising potential therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases, stem cell therapy exerts beneficial effects through different mechanisms, such as direct replacement of damaged or lost cells, secretion of neurotrophic and growth factors, decreased neuroinflammation, and activation of endogenous stem cells. However, poor survival and differentiation rates of transplanted stem cells, insufficient homing ability, and difficulty tracking after transplantation limit their further clinical use. The rapid development of nanotechnology provides many promising nanomaterials for biomedical applications, which already have many applications in neurodegenerative disease treatment and seem to be able to compensate for some of the deficiencies in stem cell therapy, such as transport of stem cells/genes/drugs, regulating stem cell differentiation, and real-time tracking in stem cell therapy. Therefore, nanotherapeutic strategies combined with stem cell therapy is a promising therapeutic approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases. The present review systematically summarizes recent advances in stem cell therapeutics and nanotherapeutic strategies and highlights how they can be combined to improve therapeutic efficacy for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.Keywords: nanotherapeutic, nanomaterials, stem cell therapy, neurodegenerative diseases

Keywords

• nanotherapeutic
• nanomaterials
• stem cell therapy
• neurodegenerative diseases