What If the Benefits of MSCs Aren’t Just About the Cells?
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), commonly called lupus, is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues. Because lupus can affect different parts of the body, managing inflammation and an overactive immune response is an important part of treatment.
A recent clinical trial explored a different regenerative medicine approach: instead of administering umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs), researchers studied the secretome those cells produce.
What Exactly Is a Secretome?
MSCs naturally release a mixture of biological signals into their surroundings. This collection, known as the secretome, includes growth factors, cytokines, extracellular vesicles, and other molecules involved in communication between cells.
Researchers are interested in whether these signals can influence inflammation and immune activity without requiring the MSCs themselves to be administered. In this study, scientists tested whether UC-MSC-derived secretome could be used alongside standard treatment for people with moderately active lupus.
Putting the Secretome to the Test
The double-blind, randomized controlled trial included 29 women with SLE. Fifteen received the UC-MSC secretome, while 14 received a placebo.
Participants received an intramuscular injection once a week for six weeks while continuing their usual lupus treatment. Researchers tracked several measurements, including:
- Overall lupus disease activity
- Inflammatory markers
- Immune-related blood markers
- Treatment safety
The study lasted 43 days, allowing researchers to compare changes from before treatment through the end of the six-week intervention.
Lupus Disease Activity Improved
One of the clearest findings involved the MEX-SLEDAI score, which researchers use to measure lupus disease activity. Lower scores generally indicate less active disease.
The secretome group started with an average score of 7.33, representing moderate disease activity. By Day 43, that average had fallen to 3.27, a reduction of about 55%.
The placebo group improved as well, moving from an average score of 7.43 to 5.14. However, the secretome group showed a significantly greater improvement than the placebo group at both the middle and end of the treatment period.
What Happened to Inflammation?
Researchers also examined several markers connected with inflammation and immune activity.
TNF-alpha, an inflammatory signaling molecule, decreased significantly within the secretome group over the six weeks. IL-6 also decreased, although both the secretome and placebo groups experienced reductions and there was no significant difference between the groups at the individual testing points.
Other immune markers, including C4 and anti-dsDNA antibodies, did not show clear statistically significant differences between the groups. These mixed results are important because they show that while the clinical disease-activity findings were encouraging, not every biological measurement changed in the same way.
What About Safety?
The treatment was generally well tolerated during the short study period. Researchers reported no serious adverse events or allergic reactions related to the secretome.
Five instances of injection-site pain were reported, but the discomfort disappeared within a few minutes. No participants dropped out during the trial.
An Interesting Step Toward Cell-Free Regenerative Medicine
This study is particularly interesting because it explores regenerative medicine from a different perspective. Rather than using the stem cells themselves, researchers are investigating whether the signals released by UC-MSCs may be able to influence the body’s inflammatory and immune environment.
The results are encouraging, but the trial was small, included only women, and lasted just 43 days. Larger studies with longer follow-up will be needed to understand how durable these effects may be and which patients could benefit most.
Still, the significant improvement in lupus disease-activity scores offers an interesting early look at the potential of UC-MSC-derived secretome as a cell-free approach to supporting immune regulation.
Source
Nurudhin A, Werdiningsih Y, Sunarso I, et al. Umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-derived secretome as a potential treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus: A double-blind randomized controlled trial. Narra J. 2025;5(1). doi: 10.52225/narra.v5i1.1799. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12059846/
Related Treatment Pages