Busulfan Administration Flexibility Increases the Applicability of Scid Repopulating Cell Assay in NSG Mouse Model

Background Xenotransplantation models allowing the identification and quantification of human Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) in immunodeficient mice remain the only way to appropriately address human HSC function despite the recent progress in phenotypic characterization. However, these in vivo experiments are technically demanding, time consuming and expensive. Indeed, HSCs engraftment in mouse requires pre-conditioning of animals either by irradiation or cytotoxic drugs to allow homing of injected cells in specific stem cell niches and their subsequent expansion and differentiation in bone marrow. Recently, the development of busulfan pre-conditioning of animals improved the flexibility of experimentation in comparison with irradiation.