MS causes the body to direct an immune response to its own central nervous system.

This immune response damages the myelin, which is the fatty substance that surrounds the nerve fibers. It also damages the nerve fibers themselves and the cells that make myelin.

Symptoms of MS can vary in severity. Some people can have mild symptoms and others can have severe symptoms that can be debilitating.

Stem cell therapy in MS

The cell replacement therapy approach that aims to overcome neuronal cell loss and remyelination failure and to increase endogenous myelin repair capacity is considered as an alternative treatment option. A wide variety of preclinical studies, using experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis model of MS, have recently shown that grafted cells with different origins including mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), neural precursor and stem cells, and induced-pluripotent stem cells have the ability to repair CNS lesions and to recover functional neurological deficits. The results of ongoing autologous hematopoietic stem cell therapy studies, with the advantage of peripheral administration to the patients, have suggested that cell replacement therapy is also a feasible option for immunomodulatory treatment of MS