Age-Related Alterations in Mesenchymal Stem Cell Function: Understanding Mechanisms and Seeking Opportunities to Bypass the Cellular Aging

Abstract: Undoubtedly, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are the most common cell therapy candidates in clinical research and therapy. They not only exert considerable therapeutic effects to alleviate inflammation and promote regeneration, but also show low-immunogenicity properties, which ensure their safety following allogeneic transplantation. Thanks to the necessity of providing a sufficient number of MSCs to achieve clinically efficient outcomes, prolonged in vitro cultivation is indisputable. However, either following long-term in vitro expansion or aging in elderly individuals, MSCs face cellular senescence. Senescent MSCs undergo an impairment in their function and therapeutic capacities and secrete degenerative factors which negatively affect young MSCs. To this end, designing novel investigations to further elucidate cellular senescence and to pave the way toward finding new strategies to reverse senescence is highly demanded. In this review, we will concisely discuss current progress on the detailed mechanisms of MSC senescence and various inflicted changes following aging in MSC. We will also shed light on the examined strategies underlying monitoring and reversing senescence in MSCs to bypass the comprised therapeutic efficacy of the senescent MSCs.