Establishment of a reproducible model of chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia in NOD/SCID mice using blood-derived mononuclear or CD34+ cells

Abstract

An animal model of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) will help characterize leukemic and normal stem cells and also help evaluate experimental therapies in this disease. We have established a model of CML in the NOD/SCID mouse. Infusion of > or = 4 x 10(7) chronic-phase CML peripheral blood cells results in engraftment levels of > or = 1% in the bone marrow (BM) of 84% of mice. Engraftment of the spleen was seen in 60% of mice with BM engraftment. Intraperitoneal injection of recombinant stem cell factor produced a higher level of leukemic engraftment without increasing Philadelphia-negative engraftment. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor did not increase the level of leukemic or residual normal engraftment. Assessment of differential engraftment of normal and leukemic cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis with bcr and abl probes showed that a median of 35% (range, 5% to 91%) of engrafted cells present in the murine BM were leukemic. BM engraftment was multilineage with myeloid, B-cell, and T-cell engraftment, whereas T cells were the predominant cell type in the spleen. BM morphology showed evidence of eosinophilia and increased megakaryocytes. We also assessed the ability of selected CD34+ CML blood cells to engraft NOD/SCID mice and showed engraftment with cell doses of 7 to 10 x 10(6) cells. CD34- cells failed to engraft at cell doses of 1.2 to 5 x 10(7). CD34+ cells produced myeloid and B-cell engraftment with high levels of CD34+ cells detected. Thus, normal and leukemic stem cells are present in CD34+ blood cells from CML patients at diagnosis and lead to development of the typical features of CML in murine BM. This model is suitable to evaluate therapy in CML.