Abstract
Much attention has been paid to stem cell therapy. Current strategy is the use of pluripotent stem cells such as embryonal stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells. Recently, it is found that stem cells derived from various tissues such as bone marrow and adipose tissue may have potential to regenerate inured tissues. However, as far as transplantation of stem cells or differentiated cells from stem cells is involved, physiological tissue regeneration may not be achieved. Furthermore, cell-transplantation therapy may not be widely spread in the world. Gene therapy for neovascularization using angiogenic genes has presented a new concept for tissue regeneration. A novel strategy for tissue regeneration is the recruitment of stem cells to injured tissues and the induction of physiological differentiation of stem cells for tissue repair. Several factors have been reported to achieve in vivo tissue regeneration. For example, HMGB1 (high mobility group protein 1), a multifunctional protein, can egress mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow and SDF-1 (stromal cell derived factor-1) may be associated to recruit those stem cells to injured tissues. Herein, I introduce the current status of recruitment of stem cells for tissue repair.
