Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells do not enhance intra-synovial tendon healing despite engraftment and homing to niches within the synovium.

Unlike other laboratory animal models of tendon injury, this novel model mimics the failed tendon healing seen clinically intra-synovially. Importantly, however, implanted stem cells exhibited homing to synovium niches where they survived for at least 14 days. This phenomenon could be utilised in the development of novel physical or biological approaches to enhance localisation of cells in augmenting intra-synovial tendon repair.