Table 2.

Important on-going clinical research on mesenchymal stem cells

Source	Clinical research	Research status	References
BM-MSCs	Diabetes mellitus	A single injection of autologous BM-MSCs can protect and maintain the residual function of pancreatic beta cells, but nonetheless, MSCs cannot replace hypoglycemic drugs. Further research is needed	[17]
Stem cells in the islets of adult mice	Diabetes mellitus	It is promising to treat diabetes by transplanting functional islet organoids in the future	[18]
MSCs	Diabetes mellitus	Reversing the dedifferentiation of β cells in type 2 diabetic islets and repairing islet function	[19, 20]
MSCs	Autoimmune diseases	Apoptosis and metabolic inactivation of MSC have immunomodulatory potential, and regulatory T cells and monocytes play an important role	[26]
Remestemcel-L	COVID-19 ARDS	Remestemcel-L has an immunomodulatory effect and has potential applications in the treatment of COVID-19 ARDS	[34]
MSCs	Vaccines	Most pathogens have no effective antibodies, which suggest the limitations of the five existing vaccine platforms. The successful establishment of the stem cell vaccine, the sixth vaccine platform, can point out a new direction for future vaccine research and development	[47]
MSCs	Cancer	To use MSCs as the carriers of anti-tumor drugs to achieve effective tumor treatment	[88]
		Gene-directed enzyme prodrug therapy or suicide gene therapy	[92, 93]
MSCs	Ischemic diseases	The mechanism of MSCs in the treatment of myocardial infarction is not that MSCs migrate to the injured myocardium differentiate into cardiomyocytes but secrete cytokines	[107, 108]
MSCs	Anti-aging	YAP plays a key role in maintaining the youthful state of human adult stem cells and may play a role of “de-senescence”	[123]
MSCs	OA	A new approach for gene therapy of OA targeting DGCR8	[129]
		Exosomes (or similar particles) derived from MSCs may suppress OA development	[130]
MSC-derived exosomes	Cancer therapy Gene therapy Drug delivery	MSC-derived exosomes have been suggested as possible cell-free substitutes for intact MSCs	[137]
MSCs	POF	The relevant mechanisms need to be further elucidated	[138–142]
BM-MSCs	Organ transplantation	Immune tolerance can be induced by the infusion of autologous BM-MSCs without taking immunosuppressive agents	[143]