Abstract: Heart failure (HF), a clinically common serious syndrome caused by many cardiovascular diseases, often leads to abnormal cardiac function of pumping blood. Recently, an emerging therapy of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell implantation offers hope for treatment of HF. However, poor survival of engrafted cells, weak ability of migration and myocardial repair attenuate its positive effects. These problems could be solved via activating SDF-1/CXCR4 axis and thus SDF-1/CXCR4 axis-mediated bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells may be a new line of therapy for HF.