1. Key Laboratory of Bioactive Materials for Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University 2. Xu Rongxiang Center for Regenerative Life Sciences, Nankai University
Stem cell has made tremendous progress on the treatment of diseases due to its self-renewal and directed differentiation. However, its therapeutic effect needs to be further improved. Recently, bioactive nanoparticles consisting of nanoparticles or nanoparticles loaded with chemicals, cytokines, nucleotides and peptides, could significantly improve the therapeutic efficacy of stem cell. The bioactive nanoparticles could promote the survival, homing, differentiation and paracrine of stem cell and regulate its in vivo behaviors. In addition, in order to understand how stem cells play a therapeutic role and optimize treatment methods, the nanoprobes have been developed for tracking stem cell fate in vivo following administration or transplantation. Starting with the introduction of stem cells therapy, this paper comprehensively analyzed the current problems in cell therapy and the necessity of stem cells combined with biomaterial, and reviewed the applications of nanoparticles in stem cells tracing, as well as the research of nanoparticles loaded with chemical drugs and gene drugs to improve the therapeutic effect of stem cells. With the development of nanotechnology and the in-depth study of stem cells, it is believed that nanoparticles combined with stem cells will play an increasingly important role in the treatment of diseases in the near future.