© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 153
T. Pandey (ed.), Imaging in Stem Cell Transplant and Cell-based Therapy,
Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51833-6_10
Chapter 10
Uterine Stem Cells and Their Future
Therapeutic Potential in Regenerative
Medicine
K.G. Aghila Rani and Taruna Madan
10.1 Introduction
Recent years have witnessed tremendous progress in using ‘Adult Stem Cells’
(ASCs) in regenerative medicine. ASCs are considered to be safer for therapeutic
use and several are already in clinical trials. The presence of ASCs has been
reported in a variety of human tissues like blood, heart, liver, intestine, muscles,
skin, nervous system, dental pulp, adipose tissue, synovial membrane, umbilical
cord blood, amniotic fluid and recently in the endometrium (lining of the uterus)
[ 1 ]. Major advances have been made since then to identify the cells with progeni-
tor/stem cell like activity in human and mouse endometrium and efforts are still
ongoing to fully characterise these cells for their utility in therapeutic applications.
Characteristic properties such as accessibility, ease of harvesting and diverse dif-
ferentiation potential brands endometrial stem cells as a valuable source of autolo-
gous stem cells for regenerative medicine. On the other hand, the role of these
putative stem cell populations has been associated with pathogenesis of certain
gynaecological disorders involving abnormal cell proliferation such as endometri-
osis, endometrial hyperplasia, endometrial cancer and adenomyosis [ 2 , 3 ]. This
review focuses on identification of different populations of uterine/endometrial
stem cells (EnSCs) and efforts evaluating their therapeutic utility for clinical
applications.
K.G. Aghila Rani, Post Doc Fellow • T. Madan, Ph.D. (*)
Department of Innate Immunity, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health
(ICMR), Parel, Mumbai, India
e-mail: [email protected]