The Influence of Diabetes Mellitus on Proliferation and Osteoblastic Differentiation of MSCs

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a widespread chronic metabolic disease which has high mortality due to its complications. In addition to traditional medication, stem cell transplantation therapeutics has become a brand-new and prospective remedy for DM. With strong self-renewal and multi-potential ability, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are considered as ideal cell sources of cell therapy for DM and many other diseases. However, not only do endogenous MSCs fail to replace the impaired islet cells, but also transplanted MSCs fail to cure many patients complicated with DM. Besides, quite a few DM patients suffer from high risk of fracture and low efficiency of bone regeneration, which are often associated with the osteoblastic differentiation of MSCs. Recently, a number of researches have investigated that the changes in micro-environment by DM can affect biological characteristics of MSCs through many factors. Summary: In this review, we summarize the developments in the influence of DM on proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation of MSCs, and moreover, osteoporosis, obesity and metabolism syndrome, as they are closely related to DM.