“…Transplantation of bone marrow-derived MSCs or EPCs has been reported to reduce mortality and ALI induced by endotoxin or sepsis in rodent models [Yamada et al, 2004;Gupta et al, 2007;Mei et al, 2007;Xu et al, 2007bXu et al, , 2008Nemeth et al, 2009;Araujo et al, 2010;Mao et al, 2010;Mei et al, 2010;Danchuk et al, 2011]. Although it has been shown that transplantation of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BM-MNCs) in a model of LPSinduced ALI led to a repair of alveolar endothelium and epithelium and improvement in lung mechanics [Prota et al, 2010], studies focused on MSCs show that the mechanism of action of bone marrow-derived stem cells is predominantly paracrine [Lee et al, 2011a], with the release of molecules that have not only immunomodulatory effects but also act as growth factors, factors regulating endothelial and epithelial permeability and antimicrobial peptides that can potentially treat the major abnormalities underlying ALI, including impaired airway fluid clearance, altered lung endothelial permeability, dysregulated inflammation and infection ( fig.…”