Research Progress on the Osteogenesis-Related Regulatory Mechanisms of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells

In recent years, research on human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSCs) derived from human umbilical cord tissue has accelerated and entered clinical application research. Compared with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from other sources, hUCMSCs can be extracted from different parts of umbilical cord or from the whole umbilical cord. It has the characteristics of less ethical controversy, high differentiation potential, strong proliferation ability, efficient expansion in vitro, avoiding immune rejection and immune privilege, and avoids the limitations of lack of embryonic stem cells, heterogeneity, ethical and moral constraints. hUCMSCs avoid the need for embryonic stem cell sources, heterogeneity, and ethical and moral constraints. Bone defects are very common in clinical practice, but completely effective bone tissue regeneration treatment is challenging. Currently, autologous bone transplantation and allogeneic bone transplantation are main treatment approaches in clinical work, but each has different shortcomings, such as limited sources, invasiveness, immune rejection and insufficient osteogenic ability. Therefore, to solve the bottleneck of bone tissue regeneration and repair, a great amount of research has been carried out to explore the clinical advantages of hUCMSCs as seed cells to promote osteogenesis.However, the regulation of osteogenic differentiation of hUCMSCs is an extremely complex process. Although a large number of studies have demonstrated that the role of hUCMSCs in enhancing local bone regeneration and repair through osteogenic differentiation and transplantation into the body involves multiple signaling pathways, there is no relevant article that summarize the findings. This article discusses the osteogenesis-related regulatory mechanisms of hUCMSCs, summarizes the currently known related mechanisms, and speculates on the possible signals.