Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To Tumor tropism of Mesenchymal Stem Cells confers them an added characteristic. Possibly, one can explore inherent anticancer potentials to deliver anti-cancer agents to the site of the tumor. It is a well-established fact that Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) are equipped with traits like multilineage differentiation potential, immune privilegeness and probably some affinity for tumors. The scientific community has been debating pro-cancer or anticancer nature of MSCs. It is believed that MSCs, by virtue of their reparative function, acts as a tumor-promoting entity by expressing several growth factors and helps formation of new vessels by a process called angiogenesis. However, MSCs are also reported to play an anticancer role by expressing molecules like TRAIL (Tumor Necrosis Factor-related Apoptosis Inducing Ligand) and DKK1 (Wnt pathway inhibitor) and many other tumor suppressor molecules. Extensive literature is available on tumor specific migration and anti-cancer nature of MSCs derived from either bone marrow or adipose tissue. The behavior of mix of MSCs derived from perinatal tissues viz. umbilical cord tissue, placenta and amniotic sac for these investigations is least explored. The advantages of utilizing perinatal tissue as a source of MSCs are obvious, which include the ease of procurement process, their abundant availability and the naive nature of cells as compared to other sources studies so far. We present here a comparative study of migration capabilities of MSCs derived from umbilical cord tissue alone (UCMSC), a subtype of the UCMSC called MSC1, adipose tissue derived Mesenchymal stem cells (ATMSC) and a mixture of MSCs (Mixed MSCs) derived from perinatal tissues namely the umbilical cord tissue, placenta and the amniotic sac. (Am J Transl Med 2018. 2:125-137).