A NOVEL STRATEGY FOR THE TREATMENT OF PRECANCEROUS FIBROTIC LESIONS, CARTILAGE AND TENDON DISORDERS AND LOCAL OR SYSTEMIC FIBROTIC LESIONS BY LOCAL OR SYSTEMIC INJECTIONS OF TRANSGENIC MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS OR TRANSGENIC SOMATIC CELLS EXPRESSING PROTEINS OF MATRIX METALLOPROTEINASE FAMILY AND CONDITIONED MEDIA DERIVED FROM CULTURING THESE TRANSGENIC CELLS.
Fibrosis is a pathological process resulting from chronic inflammation followed by deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins by the activated myofibroblasts. Fibrosis is seen in chronic inflammatory conditions of the intestine, namely ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn™s disease. Oral Submucous Fibrosis is a chronic, inflammatory, fibrotic and pre-malignant condition characterized by deposition of collagen in the oral submucosa (Fransn-Pettersson et al., 2016). Current anti-inflammatory therapies do not prevent or reverse the fibrosis in IBD. Fibrosis results from all inflammatory stimuli like irritants, chemicals, and infections. This invention acts against the fibrosis by virtue of action of mesenchymal stem cells expressing a protein of matrix metalloproteinase family (MMP- 1/MMP-2/ MMP-8) supplemented by the safety of HSV-tk or another suicidal gene.
