Methionine sulfoxide reductase A as a marker for isolating subpopulations of stem and progenitor cells used in regenerative medicine.

Bin Hu, Alicia J El Haj

Institute of Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele University, Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffs ST4 7QB, UK.

Medical hypotheses 2013 May

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The essence of cell therapies is to transplant stem and progenitor cells for repairing and/or replacing damaged tissues. Transplanted cells need adapt to the injured site, where they are subjected to high levels of oxidative stress and the failure of those transplanted cells to combat the oxidative stress is considered to be one cause of failure of cell transplants. Moreover, the loss of function in primary tissue cells to combat the oxidative damage is reported to be one potential reason for tissue degeneration. Therefore, the isolation of appropriate subpopulations from autologous and allogeneic stem and progenitor cells, which can resist harsh oxidative stress, would be of great benefit to cell therapies. Currently, isolation techniques based on cell surface markers are widely used in the clinic, but these are far from ideal, while new isolation methods that discriminate cell populations based on cellular activities have been emerging as an alternative choice. The enzyme methionine sulfoxide reductase (Msr) A has been shown to play an important role in protecting cells from oxidative stress and acts as a regulator of the life span of mammals. We hypothesize that the activity of MsrA can be employed as a marker for the isolation of stem and progenitor cell subpopulations for cell therapy applications. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Bin Hu, Alicia J El Haj. Methionine sulfoxide reductase A as a marker for isolating subpopulations of stem and progenitor cells used in regenerative medicine. Medical hypotheses. 2013 May;80(5):663-5