Should Viral Un-infectibility Be an Additional Required Characteristic of a Deliverable Adult Progenitor Cell?

Stem cells can represent a privileged target for noxious agents, such as viruses, which, possibly reactivated in the host by immune suppression, could invalidate implanted engineered tissues vanishing the cell therapy advantages. In search for biomarkers within the cellular specific expression pathways that define the cell " non- infectibility" status, we reviewed known stem cell susceptibility to viral infection, host genetics and epigenetic reprogramming of host genes in viral infection and we have indicated molecular pathways now known to be involved by viral infections ( in particular, the mechanisms presiding over the generation of the viral innate immunity, such as viral PAMPs, TLRs, apoptotic signaling pathways, inflammasome biology, interferon induction and negative regulation) whose knowledge we believe will be critical to the selection of stem cell populations with natural or induced resistence to viral infection to be used for replacement therapy.