Stem cell-conditioned medium is a promising treatment for Alzheimer's disease

Background and aim: Alzheimer's disease (AD), a prevalent progressive neurodegenerative disease, is mainly characterized by dementia, memory loss, and cognitive disorder. Rising research was performed to develop pharmacological or non-pharmacological approaches to treat or improve AD complications. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are stromal cells that can self-renew and exhibit multilineage differentiation. Recent evidence suggested that some of the therapeutic effects of MSCs are mediated by the secreted paracrine factors. These paracrine factors, called MSC- conditioned medium (MSC-CM), may stimulate endogenous repair, promote angio- and artery genesis, and reduce apoptosis through paracrine mechanisms. The current study aims to systematically review the advantages of MSC-CM to the development of research and therapeutic concepts for AD management.

Material and methods: The present systematic review was performed using PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus from April 2020 to May 2022 following the "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews" (PRISMA) guidelines. The keywords, including "Conditioned medium OR Conditioned media OR Stem cell therapy" AND "Alzheimer's," was searched, and finally, 13 papers were extracted.

Results: The obtained data revealed that MSC-CMs might positively affect neurodegenerative diseases prognosis, especially AD, through various mechanisms, including a decrease in neuro-inflammation, reduction of oxidative stress and Aβ formation, modulation of Microglia function and count, reduction of apoptosis, induction of synaptogenesis and neurogenesis. Also, the results showed that MSC-CM administration could significantly improve cognitive and memory function, increase the expression of neurotrophic factors, decrease the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, improve mitochondrial function, reduce cytotoxicity, and increase neurotransmitter levels.

Conclusion: While inhibiting the induction of neuroinflammation could be considered the first therapeutic effect of CMs, the prevention of apoptosis could be regarded as the most crucial effect of CMs on AD improvement.