Mesenchymal stem cell-mediated cancer therapy: A dual-targeted strategy of personalized medicine

Figure 2 Putative personalized strategy for cancer therapy with engineered mesenchymal stem cells. Operable patients provide direct access to tumor tissue. Primary tumor cells can be isolated from excised tumor tissue and co-cultured with anti-cancer gene pre-engineered MSCs. The most sensitive type of engineered MSCs can be selected through transwell co-culture or other real-time monitoring systems. Useable amounts of MSCs can be obtained through large scale of transduction with selected anti-cancer gene. For patients not receiving surgical intervention (un-operable), multiple gene co-expression or organ-specific expression vectors can be used for MSC transduction. As explained in the text, MSCs can be obtained from patient’s own body or other suitable allo-sources and transplanted accordingly. MSCs: mesenchymal stem cells.