1966年Friedenstein发现了一群贴壁生长的、成纤维样的，可以体外诱导分化成多种中胚层组织的细胞。1991年Caplan正式命名为间充质干细胞（MSC），成为了全球最常用的描述。随着这群细胞生物学特性研究的进展，MSC到底是不是真正的干细胞引起了争论。目前研究资料表明，MSC的治疗效果主要是通过作为支持细胞分泌生物活性因子，刺激患者体内残留的组织特异性干细胞再生组织，而不是通过其干细胞的特性分化成新的组织。然而，一些研究者过分强调MSC的干细胞性能，误导患者以为输注的MSC可以再生成新组织。因此，一些学者呼吁需将MSC的名称改为间充质细胞或药用信号细胞（medicinal signal cell）。本文将对MSC的定义和起源的发展过程进行梳理，并讨论如何合理的应用MSC的名称。

A population of spindle shaped plastic-adherent cells, with multiple differentiation into a number of different mesodermal tissues in vitro were first described by Friedenstein in 1966, and were named mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) by Caplan in 1991. Although it becomes the most global usage description, it still remains debate whether MSCs are truly stem cells due to the progress achieved on the biology of MSCs.The present data show that the therapeutic effects of MSCs were as sporting cells secreting bioactive factors, which stimulate patient's own tissue-specific resident stem cells to regenerate new tissues rather than as stem cells differentiation to new tissues in vivo. Unfortunately,the stem ness of MSCs was much exaggerated by some researchers, which caused the patients with unrealistic expectations that exogenously supplied MSCs would differentiate into regenerating tissue-producing cells. So some researchers argued that the MSC should be renamed to Mesenchymal stromal cells or medicinal signaling cells. In this article, we will summarize the developmental definition and origin of MSCs, and discuss how to use the term MSCs more correctively.