Optic nerve injury by trauma would lead to secondary retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death and axonal loss, which are the causes of irreversible visual impairment and even blindness.Currently, there is still no effective clinical treatment to cure optic nerve injury owing to limited regeneration or recovery and complex death mechanism in RGCs.Recently, stem cell therapy has been proposed as a viable treatment strategy for optic nerve injury.Adult stem cells, especially mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been widely studied in animal models and tested in clinical trials for optic neuropathies.MSCs could promote RGC survival and axonal regeneration by their neuroprotective effects, including neurotrophic factor and exosome secretion, cell-cell contact and immunomodulation.The neuroprotective properties of MSCs could further be enhanced by preconditioning.In addition, MSCs are also able to be induced and transdifferentiate into RGC for potential cell replacement therapy.This article reviews the applications of MSCs in optic nerve injury treatment and their related mechanisms, summarizes the strategies to enhance the neuroprotective effects of human MSCs and discusses the future prospects of MSCs for optic nerve injury treatment to present the diversified function of MSCs, which will help formulate a more complete and reliable treatment strategy for MSC application in traumatic optic nerve injury in the future.

Optic nerve injury by trauma would lead to secondary retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death and axonal loss, which are the causes of irreversible visual impairment and even blindness.Currently, there is still no effective clinical treatment to cure optic nerve injury owing to limited regeneration or recovery and complex death mechanism in RGCs.Recently, stem cell therapy has been proposed as a viable treatment strategy for optic nerve injury.Adult stem cells, especially mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been widely studied in animal models and tested in clinical trials for optic neuropathies.MSCs could promote RGC survival and axonal regeneration by their neuroprotective effects, including neurotrophic factor and exosome secretion, cell-cell contact and immunomodulation.The neuroprotective properties of MSCs could further be enhanced by preconditioning.In addition, MSCs are also able to be induced and transdifferentiate into RGC for potential cell replacement therapy.This article reviews the applications of MSCs in optic nerve injury treatment and their related mechanisms, summarizes the strategies to enhance the neuroprotective effects of human MSCs and discusses the future prospects of MSCs for optic nerve injury treatment to present the diversified function of MSCs, which will help formulate a more complete and reliable treatment strategy for MSC application in traumatic optic nerve injury in the future.