Joy Kong, MD, explains how clinicians use digestive enzymes like collagenase to extract mesenchymal stem cells from tissue sources. The enzymes can damage cell-surface receptors, so the FDA requires this processing happen within a clinical study for safety.
Some people use enzymes either in processing umbilical cord or processing fat tissue, because a lot of the cells, especially mesenchymal stem cells, are embedded in a lot of connective tissue. So the easiest way would just be to use collagenase to digest all the connective tissue. All of a sudden you got all these cells, they're freed up. But the problem is that these digestive enzymes can also digest certain receptors on the cells. So you could be altering the cells. So this is why I do agree with the FDA that if you're going to do that, then you probably want to have an extra layer of protection for safety. So you want to do it under a clinical study.
