Mesenchymal Stem Cells: A Potential Therapeutic Approach for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis?

Table 1

Overview of the studies involving the administration of MSCs in in vivo rodent models of ALS.

MSC source	MSC administration	Number of cells	Rodent model	Delayed ALS onset/progression	Increased survival	Delayed the loss of motor function	Ref.
Human BMMSCs	Intravenous	cells	Presymptomatic SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[43]
Human BMMSCs	Intraspinal	cells	Asymptomatic SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[44]
Murine BMMSCs	Intravenous	cells	Symptomatic SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[45]
Rat BMMSCs	Intrathecal	cells	Symptomatic SOD1^G93A rats	Yes	Yes	Yes	[46]
Human BMMSCs	Intracisternal	cells	Early symptomatic SOD1^G93A mice	—	—	Yes	[47]
Human BMMSCs	Intrathecal	cells at the age of 8, 10, and 12 weeks	SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[49]
Rat BMMSCs	Intraspinal and intravenous	10^5 cells (intraspinal); cells (intravenous)	SOD1^G93A rats	Yes	Yes	Yes	[50]
BMMSCs from an ALS patient	Intrathecal	, and cells	SOD1^G93A mice	No	Yes	Yes	[51]
Human BMMSCs	Intrathecal	cells	SOD1^G93A rats	Yes	Yes	Yes	[52]
Murine ADMSCs	Intravenous	cells	SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	No	Yes	[54]
Human ADMSCs	Intravenous or intracerebroventricular	cells (intravenous); cells (intracerebroventricular)	SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[55]
Human UC-MSCs	Intracerebroventricular or intravenous	cells (lateral ventricles); cells (intravenous)	Early symptomatic SOD1^G93A mice	—	—	—	[56]
Human UC-MSCs	Intracerebroventricular	cells at 14, 16, and 18 weeks. For behavioural test, animals received another injection at 20 weeks	SOD1^G93A mice	No	No	No	[57]
Human AMSCs	Intravenous	cells at 12, 14, and 16 weeks	SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[58]
Human BMMSCs expressing GDNF	Intramuscular	cells twice with a one-week interval	SOD1^G93A rats	Yes	Yes	Yes	[59]
Human BMMSCs neurally induced by transduction with a retroviral vector encoding Ngn1	Intravenous	cells before the onset of symptoms (8 weeks) or after (14–16 weeks).	SOD1^G93A mice	Yes	Yes	Yes	[61]

ALS: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; AMSCs: amniotic mesenchymal stem cells; ADMSCs: adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells; BMMSCs: bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells; CNS: central nervous system; MSCs: mesenchymal stem cells; UC-MSCs: umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells.