Mesenchymal stem cells for restoring endometrial function: An infertility perspective

BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be derived from several tissues such as bone marrow, placenta, adipose tissue, or endometrial tissue. MSCs gain a lot of attention for cell‐based therapy due to their characteristics including differentiation ability and immunomodulatory effect. Preclinical and clinical studies demonstrated that MSCs can be applied to treat female infertility by improving of the functions of ovary and uterus. This mini‐ review focuses on the current study of treatment of endometrial infertility by using MSCs. METHODS: The present study performed a literature review focusing on the effect of MSCs for treatment of women infertility caused by endometrial dysfunction. RESULTS: Bone marrow‐, umbilical cord‐, adipose‐, amniotic‐, and menstruation‐derived MSCs enhance endometrial cell proliferation, injury repairs as well as reducing scar formation. The beneficial mechanism probably via immunomodulatory, cell differentiation, stimulates endometrial cell proliferation and down‐regulation of fibrosis genes. The major advantage of using MSCs is to improve endometrial functions resulting in increased implantation and pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: MSCs exhibit a potential for endometrial infertility treatment. Adipose‐ and menstruation‐derived stem cells show advantages over other sources because the cells can be derived easily and do not causes graft rejection after autologous transplantation.