Mesenchymal stem cells as a therapeutic tool to treat sepsis

Sepsis is a clinical syndrome caused by a deregulatedhost response to an infection. Sepsis is the mostfrequent cause of death in hospitalized patients.Although knowledge of the pathogenesis of sepsishas increased substantially during the last decades,attempts to design effective and specific therapiestargeting components of the derailed host responsehave failed. Therefore, there is a dramatic need fornew and mechanistically alternative therapies to treatthis syndrome. Based on their immunomodulatoryproperties, adult mesenchymal stem or stromal cells（MSCs） can be a novel therapeutic tool to treat sepsis.Indeed, MSCs reduce mortality in experimental modelsof sepsis by modulating the deregulated inflammatoryresponse against bacteria through the regulation ofmultiple inflammatory networks, the reprogrammingof macrophages and neutrophils towards a more antiinflammatoryphenotype and the release of antimicrobialpeptides. This report will review the currentknowledge on the effects of MSC treatment in preclinicalexperimental small animal models of sepsis.