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REVIEW article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Integrative and Regenerative Pharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1465697
This article is part of the Research Topic Integrative Pharmacological Approaches for Regenerating Cartilage and Bone Tissue View all 3 articles

Metformin-mediated effects on mesenchymal stem cells and mechanisms: proliferation, differentiation and aging

Provisionally accepted
Xinjuan Liu Xinjuan Liu Zekun Li Zekun Li Luyun Liu Luyun Liu Ping Zhang Ping Zhang Yue Wang Yue Wang Gang Ding Gang Ding *
  • Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a type of pluripotent adult stem cell with strong self-renewal and multi-differentiation abilities. Their excellent biological traits, minimal immunogenicity, and abundant availability have made them the perfect seed cells for treating a wide range of diseases. After more than 60 years of clinical practice, metformin is currently one of the most commonly used hypoglycaemic drugs for type 2 diabetes in clinical practice. In addition, metformin has shown great potential in the treatment of various systemic diseases except for type 2 diabetes in recent years, and the mechanisms are involved with antioxidant stress, anti-inflammatory, and induced autophagy, etc. This article reviews the effects and the underlying mechanisms of metformin on the biological properties, including proliferation, multi-differentiation, and aging, of MSCs in vitro and in vivo with the aim of providing theoretical support for in-depth scientific research and clinical applications in MSCs-mediated disease treatment. considered as MSCs (Pittenger et al., 1999). MSCs are the most widely used postnatal tissue-specific stem cells used in clinical practice, and transplanting MSCs to replace damaged tissues can restore tissue structure and function (Keshavarz et al., 2023). In addition, MSCs were capable of secreting a large number of cytokines and growth factors, and playing multiple roles in immune regulation. Due to its characteristics of self-renewal, multi-directional differentiation potential, and low immunogenicity, MSCs have been considered as an excellent seed cells for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering and have been used in the research and treatment of various diseases (

    Keywords: Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Metformin, proliferation, differentiation, Aging

    Received: 16 Jul 2024; Accepted: 01 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Li, Liu, Zhang, Wang and Ding. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Gang Ding, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.