Abstract
Introduction: Potential use of umbilical cord (UC) is one of the most exciting frontiers in medicine for repairing damaged tissues. UC and cord blood-derived stem cells are the world's largest potential sources of stem cells. UC contains a mixture of stem and progenitor cells at different lineage commitment stages and UC has been verified as a candidate for cell-based therapies and tissue engineering applications due to the capability of these cells for extensive self-renewal and multi-lineage character in differentiation potential.
Areas covered: UC-based repair or regeneration of organs (i.e., heart, nerve, skin, etc.) is a high-priority research worldwide.
Expert opinion: The aim of this review is to summarize the knowledge about UC with main focus on its applications for tissue repair and regeneration.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank P Moshayedi for helpful suggestions and D Zaeifi for assistance with bibliometric studies.
Notes
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