BACKGROUND:Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are a kind of stem cells with multi-directional differentiation ability and play an important role in the healing of fractures. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore how to promote the BMSCs migration in vivo, thereby promoting bone defect repair.OBJECTIVE:To study the effects of different concentrations of musk ketone on in vivo migration of exogenous BMSCs, and to preliminarily explore the mechanism of fracture healing and cited theory.METHODS:A rat model of skull defects was made. Passage 3 BMSCs were harvested by using adherence method,labeled with DAPI, and then injected via the tail vein into the model rats. After that, the rats were intragastrically administrated with 0 (blank control), 42 (low dose), 84 (middle dose), 168 μL/kg (high dose) musk ketone, respectively.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The number of exogenous BMSCs in the defect region, and the expression of stem cell factor and Fractalkine showed a significant increase in the low- and middle-dose groups compared with the high-dose and blank control groups. These findings indicate that the low- and middle-dose musk ketone can promote the in vivo migration of exogenous stem cells.