Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Sickle Cell Anemia

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Abstract Over the past few years, the use of stem cells have given rise to many new clinical discoveries and advancements for researchers. Mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) are stem cells that are found in bone marrow that can be used to help repair and regenerate certain tissues such as cartilage or fat found in bone marrow. These cells contribute bone marrow transplantation, a method used to help treat patients with various diseases such as sickle cell anemia. With this, researchers have found ways to use mesenchymal stem cells to help achieve the overall cure for the blood disease, sickle cell anemia.
Introduction
A cell is the smallest unit of all living organisms that is necessary for all forms of life. All cells have similar …show more content…

For example, mesenchymal stromal cells are sometimes used to create a location for blood stem cells in the bone marrow. In the bone marrow, only 0.01% of the cells are actually said to be mesenchymal stromal cells (Haddad & Saldanha-Araujo, 2014). These cells are capable of acting on all the cells in the immune system, which allows them to undergo proliferation of T cells. Since MSCs are capable of doing this, they are used to treat many diseases. Mesenchymal stromal cells are also responsible for secretion of soluble factors and regulating T-cell generation. A cell located in bone marrow called a hematopoietic stem cell, gives rise to all blood cells. This stem cell is essential for life. Likewise, mesenchymal stem cells are essential in the human body. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is the only curative therapy for sickle cell disease known at this time (Kharbanda & Smith, 2014). There are no drugs out on the market which can cause regeneration of cardiac tissue or any other tissue. Mesenchymal stem cells can be used to help this regeneration to …show more content…

This defines these specific stem cells as cells that are capable of regenerating cells in bone marrow and express cell surface markers. Mesenchymal stem cells positively express hematopoietic cell surface markers CD105, CD73, and CD90 and are absent for the expression of CD34, CD45, CD11a, CD19, and HLA-DR (Salem & Thiemermann, 2010). In a study, a patient with sickle cell anemia, was given increased amounts of CD34+ cells that coexpressed the gene gylcophorin A (Luck & Zeng, 2004). The hematopoietic cell surface marker, CD34+ expressing gylcophorin A, helped increase the production of red blood cells. (Luck & Zeng,

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