Enrichment of murine hematopoietic stem cells. Reconstitution of syngeneic and haplotype-mismatched mice.

A method is described to purify murine hematopoietic stem cells. The procedure involves fluorescence-activated cell sorting of nonadherent nucleated bone marrow cells for the presence of the antigen, Thy 1.2, and the absence of the lineage-specific antigens, Lyt2, L3T4, Mac1, B220, and J11D.2. These Thy 1.2 + T − B − M − J − cells are 200-800-fold enriched in in vitro colony-forming units. Moreover, this narrow subset shows enhanced ability to form spleen colonies and engraft lethally irradiated mice