Abstract

Chinese have enjoyed not only quick recovery from but also effective daily prophylaxis of bone injuries. According to the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory, Shen (or nephridium) is in charge of the bone, which corresponds to teeth, spine, skull, femur and the like. The function of Shen can be divided into Shen Yin (or negative nephridium) and Shen Yang (or positive nephridium). Bone injury is usually accompanied with blood stasis and loss in microenvironment. Therefore, traditional Chinese doctors had chosen tonifying Shen Yin, invigorating Shen Yang, enriching and activating the blood or even combining the above three strategies for injured bone repairing. Nowadays, researchers are reunderstanding TCM drugs and formulas by studying mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) proliferation and differentiation in vitro and vivo. This review will introduce some newest articles mainly in China focusing on the growth and differentiation of MSCs, which were treated with a single herb or formulas of those drugs (belonging to the above four classes) to demonstrate the huge potential of TCMs in the future bone-injury-therapeutic production of MSCs.

Key words: MSC, traditional chinese medicine, osteogenic differentiation, bone injury repairing.

Abbreviation

Abbreviations: TCM, Traditional Chinese medicine; MSC, mesenchymal stem cell; NSE, neuron specific enolase; GFAP, glial fibrillary acidic protein; GSB, a TCM drug called Gui-Si-Bu; ALP, alkaline phosphatase; TGF-β, transforming growth factor-β; BMP-2, bone morphogenetic protein 2; RT-PCR, real-time polymerase chain reaction; DR, Drynariae Rhizoma; MHC, major histocompatibility complex; BEAs, blood enrichers and activators; NF, neurofilament; BCBC, bovine cancellous bone complex; CTPM, Chinese-Traditional-Patent-Medicine; DQTMP, a TCM medicine called Dan-Qi-Tong-Mai-Pian.