Recently, it was reported that over-expression of HO-1, by gene transfection, in BMSCs, was able to improve HO-1-BMSCs survival in the I/R-AKI micro-environment and decrease the levels of MCP-1, TNF-a, and IL-1, leading to a greater improvement of renal function compared to BMSCs treatment alone (Liu et al., 2015). Here, HMOX1 is linked to acute kidney injury.