Stem cell culture media enriched with plant-derived compounds: Cell proliferation enhancement

Stem cells are characterized by their self-renewal and differentiation potential, emerging as a promising strategy for developing cell therapies to treat degenerative diseases. Stem cell culture under in vitro conditions involves the addition of growth factors to the media to stimulate their proliferation. However, most of these growth factors are of animal origin, hindering the implementation of the cultured cells into the clinic. Therefore, the replacement of animal-derived growth factors for plant-derived compounds has been proposed to accomplish the guidelines of good manufacturing practices. Plants are rich sources of bioactive compounds implicated in mainly anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative and immunomodulatory mechanisms. Thus, for many years they have been used to prevent and treat many human diseases. Regarding stem cell culture, plant-derived compounds act as regulators of signaling pathways involved in proliferation; therefore, their use as supplements in culture media represents a lower cost alternative with greater reproducibility to potentialize cell proliferation under in vitro conditions. Hence, this review aims to discuss plant-derivative effects on the proliferation of stem cells with special interest in three main mechanisms of actions: (i) growth factors and their proliferation signaling effect, (ii) mitogens and their cell-cycle regulation effect, and (iii) survival factors and their anti-apoptotic effect. (c) 2021 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).