Enhanced normal short-term human myelopoiesis in mice engineered to express human-specific myeloid growth factors

Better methods to characterize normal human hematopoietic cells with short-term repopulating activity cells (STRCs) are needed to facilitate improving recovery rates in transplanted patients. We now show that 5-fold more human myeloid cells are produced in sublethally irradiated NOD/SCID-IL-2Receptor-gamma chain-null (NSG) mice engineered to constitutively produce human interleukin-3, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and Steel factor (NSG-3GS mice) than in regular NSG mice 3 weeks after an intravenous injection of CD34(+) human cord blood cells. Importantly, the NSG-3GS mice also show a concomitant and matched increase in circulating mature human neutrophils. Imaging NSG-3GS recipients of lenti-luciferase-transduced cells showed that human cells being produced 3 weeks posttransplant were heterogeneously distributed, validating the blood as a more representative measure of transplanted STRC activity. Limiting dilution transplants further demonstrated that the early increase in human granulopoiesis in NSG-3GS mice reflects an expanded output of differentiated cells per STRC rather than an increase in STRC detection. (Blood. 2013; 121(5): e1-e4)