Bone marrow stem cells: Source, characterization, isolation, culture, and identification

Stem cell transplantation offers an exciting new therapeutic avenue for stroke, as many studies have demonstrated favorable results in animal models with various cell types. Among them, the bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in particular, may have enormous therapeutic potential because they can be harvested from the patients themselves without posing ethical or immunological difficulties. More importantly, BMSCs represent an important stem cell population with multipotent functions, including migration and transport functions to sites of local injuries or tissue damage to support appropriate cell and tissue renewal to replace the damaged areas, which are extremely useful for clinical applications, particularly in regenerative medicine. In this chapter, we summarize the source, characterization, isolation, culture, and identification of BMSCs.