Bone marrow and fetal liver radiation chimeras

Abstract

Radiation chimeras are prepared by subjecting recipient mice to sublethal or lethal dose of irradiation and injecting them with hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) from untreated donor mice. HSC can be obtained from bone marrow or fetal liver. This technique is a powerful tool when coupled with gene targeting strategies to investigate function of HSCs, thymocyte development, and T cell function. This protocol describes how to produce bone marrow or fetal liver chimeras.