Role of mesenchymal stem cells migration in bone injury repair

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are capable of self-replication and multi-directional differentiation, which are very important for the development and reconstruction of mesenchymal tissue. Bone tissue damage repair involves the participation of various cells and molecules. The recovery of bone mass requires sufficiently many MSCs to migrate to the damaged site to perform the reconstruction function. The local inflammatory response at the injury site can recruit MSCs and promote new bone formation. Simultaneously, niche changes during the migration of MSCs will affect their biological performance and initiate the phase of directed differentiation. This article explores the relevant mechanisms that mediate the migration of MSCs in the process of bone injury repair, including the regulation of immune cells and chemotactic signaling molecules in the inflammatory response in the bone repair stage through signaling pathways such as BMP/Smads. Then, it summarizes the mechanism by which the high matrix stiffness upregulates the expression of the integrin and focal adhesions to promote the MSCs migration and osteogenic differentiation. Simultaneously, the migration ability of MSCs can be regulated through drugs or genetic modification to promote the bone injury repair. The improvement of MSCs migration ability can shorten the time of bone tissue damage repair and improve the bone quality. This article reviews the role of the MSCs migration ability in bone tissue injury repair to provide a reference for the application of MSCs with high migration ability in the fields of stem cell therapy for bone related diseases and bone tissue engineering.

Keywords

• bone injury，
• bone tissue engineering ，
• stem cell therapy ，
• osteoporosis，
• osteoarthritis ，
• mesenchymal stem cells，
• migration，
• recruitment，
• homing，
• integrin ，
• osteogenic differentiation，
• matrix stiffness，