In addition, the investigators found that myocytes constitutively secreted CXCL12, which was shown to increase cardiac fibroblast migration by 59%, suggesting that the recruitment of bone-marrow-derived cells plays an important role in the pathogenesis of cardiac fibrosis in heart failure, and that CXCL12 is involved in this recruitment [43]. This evidence concerns the gene CXCL12 and heart failure.