By-Vinay Kumar Mehra
Animal Biotechnology centre,National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, India.
PhD scholar (vinay28mehra@yahoo.com)
The first case of COVID-19 was detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 after within few days the number of COVID-19 patients have rapidly increased not only in China, but also worldwide, including Germany, , Italy, and USA, India and other counties and become epidemic. COVID-19 is a positive-stranded RNA virus having spike glycoproteins on their surface which cause respiratory disease. Currently there is no drug or vaccine is available to treat this disease worldwide. So in this report I suggest a new approach to improve patient’s health to COVID-19 using mesenchymal stem cells.
MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS:
Mesenchymal stem cells are multipotent stem cells which have the capability to differentiate into a variety of cell types, including bone cells, cartilage cells, muscle cell) and fat cells. MSCs have immunomodulatory properties including cytokines, immune-receptors and secretion of anti-inflammatory molecules which makes MSCs an effective tool for treatment of many chronic diseases. They are present not only in fetal tissues but also in many adult tissues.
Several reports suggested thaton infection the COVID-19 virus specifically recognizes the angiotensin I converting enzyme 2 receptor (ACE2) by its spike protein in host cell and this ACE2 receptor allow the entry of this virus into the host cell especially the alveolar type II cells and capillary endothelium cells. Some scientist use immunological therapy to treat the infected patients,However immunomodulatory effecs were not so strong enough because of only one or two immune factors were used.
Scientists at School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China used MSCs therapy on COVID-19 infected patients during Jan 23, 2020 to Jan 31, 2020. After few days (10 days) they found that all symptoms disappeared in all seven patients and no side effects were reported. After treatment, they found that peripheral lymphocytes were increased, the C-reactive protein decreased, and the over activated cytokine-secreting immune cells CXCR3+ CD4+ T cells, CXCR3+ CD8+ T cells and CXCR3+ NK cells disappeared in 3 to 6 days. In addition to this level of TNF-α was significantly reduced and IL-10 increased in MSC treated group compared to the control grou. So this study clearly indicated that treatment of COVID-19 infected patients with Mesenchymal stem cells could be the promising are in near future.
References:
1. Leng Zikuan,Zhu Rongjia,Hou Wei, et al. Transplantation of ACE2- Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improves the Outcome of Patients with COVID-19 Pneumonia[J]. Aging and disease, 2020, 11(2): 216-228.
2. Su M. Metcalfe. Mesenchymal stem cells and management of COVID-19 pneumonia. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medidd.2020.100019.
3. Ullah I, Subbarao RB, Rho GJ. Human mesenchymal stem cells – current trends and future prospective. Biosci Rep. 2015;35(2):e00191. Published 2015 Apr 28. doi:10.1042/BSR20150025.
