Abstract

Kasturi Nag* and Kishori S. Tarfe

ABSTRACT

Skin is the largest organ on your body, made up of several different components, including water, protein, lipids, and different minerals and chemicals. Skin wounds are among the most common injuries in animals and humans. The skin offers a perfect model system for studying the wound healing cascade, which involves a finely tuned interplay between several cell types, pathways and processes. Vertebrate skin is composed of an epidermis and dermis. After a deep skin injury in mammals, the wound heals, but the dermis cannot regenerate. Cell-based therapies as alternative or adjunct devices to standard skin grafting have demonstrated therapeutic potentials at cellular, molecular and tissue regenerative levels in severe burn wound healing. Cell therapy may be utilized to deliver various types of living cells that are critically needed for skin regeneration. Stem cell-based therapy might not only accelerate earlier wound closure and skin regeneration but also prevent wound contracture and scar formation. Treatments for chronic non-healing wounds are expensive because reiterative treatments are needed. Regenerative medicine and in particular mesenchymal stem cells approach is emerging as new potential clinical application in wound healing. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent stem cells derived from adult stem cells. Primary MSCs can be obtained from diverse sources, including bone marrow, adipose tissue, and umbilical cord blood. Recently, MSCs have been recognized as therapeutic agents for skin regeneration and rejuvenation. The aim of this review is, therefore, to present a critical synthesis of our current understanding of the role of stem cells in skin regeneration.