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Most conventional treatments for neurodegenerative diseases fail due to their focus on neuroprotection rather
than neurorestoration. Stem cell‐based therapies are becoming a potential treatment option for neurodegenerative diseases
as they can home in, engraft, differentiate and produce factors for CNS recovery. Stem cells derived from human dental
pulp tissue differ from other sources of mesenchymal stem cells due to their embryonic neural crest origin and neurotrophic
property. These include both dental pulp stem cells [DPSCs] from dental pulp tissues of human permanent teeth and stem
cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth [SHED]. SHED offer many advantages over other types of MSCs such as good
proliferative potential, minimal invasive procurement, neuronal differentiation and neurotrophic capacity, and negligible
ethical concerns. The therapeutic potential of SHED is attributed to the paracrine action of extracellularly released secreted
factors, specifically the secretome, of which exosomes is a key component. SHED and its conditioned media can be effective
in neurodegeneration through multiple mechanisms, including cell replacement, paracrine effects, angiogenesis,
synaptogenesis, immunomodulation, and apoptosis inhibition, and SHED exosomes offer an ideal refined bed-to-bench
formulation in neurodegenerative disorders. However, in spite of these advantages, there are still some limitations of SHED
exosome therapy, such as the effectiveness of long-term storage of SHED and their exosomes, the development of a robust
GMP-grade manufacturing protocol, optimization of the route of administration, and evaluation of the efficacy and safety
in humans. In this review, we have addressed the isolation, collection and properties of SHED along with its therapeutic
potential on in vitro and in vivo neuronal disorder models as evident from the published literature.
Neural stem cells: therapeutic potential for neurodegenerative diseases
