The whole body irradiation of mice by lethal doses represents a standard model for elimination of endogenous hemopoiesis and demonstration of efficacy of transplantation heterogenous population bone marrow cells - hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Transplantation of bone marrow cells or sorted lin-/CD117+resulted in hematopoietic recovery and survival of irradiated mice as shown by determination of CFU-GM numbers in bone marrow of transplanted animals as we described previously (Filip e al.Transf Apher Sci 41, 2009, 183-190).
Bone marrow-derived cells after i.v. administration do not necessarily engraft back to the bone marrow. To trace distribution of grafted cells in the recipient organism, we utilized transgenic mice as donors whose cells are tagged to endogenous vectors.