MSCs. Moreover, MSCs harvested from hUC are pluripotent and immunologically naive. The morphology and biological characteristic of hUC-MSCs resembles that of MSCs isolated from bone marrow. CONCLUSION: Cell-based therapy is an emerging field, which can offer great therapeutic potential in the complex human diseases. Compared with bone marrow, hUC has been considered as an ideal source of MSCs due to their little ethical obstacles, painless procedures involved, lower risk of immune rejection and convenient sources for autologous cell therapy. The rapid development of umbilical cord blood banks appears to provide plentiful supply of stem cells for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. INTRODUCTIONWith the increasing prevalence and incidence rates in the complex human diseases, e.g., bone regeneration disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetic disease and hematopoietic disease, there exits an urgent need to search for more effective and efficient therapies. Cellbased therapy is a novel and potential therapeutic approach, which can replace diseased or damaged cells with minimal side effects by introducing stem cells to these tissues or organs [1][2][3][4] . Currently, BMSCs have represented the golden type of stem cell for cell-based therapies. Experimental and clinical studies have showed the selfrenewal and multilineage differentiation capability of BMSCs [5][6][7] . However, it is quite difficult to produce large quantities of tissue/cells via bone marrow due to the decreasing frequency and differentiation potential with age. The harvesting of BMSCs also involves invasive procedures [8] . Therefore, the search for substitute of BMSCs is of ABSTRACT AIM: The purpose of the study was to summarize the unique features of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) and their clinical application prospect.