Amniotic fluid stem cells for the repair of prenatal and perinatal defects

Abstract

Congenital abnormalities are relatively frequent and often require multiple surgical interventions with child growth to ameliorate structure and function of the affected organ. Cell-based therapies and tissue engineering may help to reduce the need for multiple surgeries and improve outcome. Amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells offer a very suitable cell source for the establishment of such therapeutic approaches for the treatment of birth defects in uterus and perinatally. Together with their high plasticity, AFS cells have the advantage, compared for example to bone marrow stem cells, that they are harvested during standard amniocentesis. This avoids the need for any additional invasive procedure to the fetus, while accessing an autologous cell source. The focus of this review is on current experimental and clinical evidence of the potential of AFS cells for the treatment of birth defects either in uterus or early postnatally. Although clinical translation in this field is still in its infancy, AFS cells offer much promise both because of their paracrine effects and of their ability to differentiate into a variety of tissues with the required functional properties and shape when seeded onto appropriate scaffolds.