Injected human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells do not appear to elicit an inflammatory response in a murine model of osteoarthritis.

Beneficial change in a PMM joint was seen with only one hUC-MSC population, perhaps indicating that cell therapy is not appropriate for severely osteoarthritic joints. However, none of the implanted cells appeared to elicit an inflammatory response at the time-points studied. The variability of UC donors suggests some populations may be more therapeutic than others and donor characterisation is essential in developing allogeneic cell therapies.