Engraftment of bone marrow-derived cells after nonlethal radiation in syngeneic C57BL/6 mice

Objective To study the characteristics of cell engraftment in mice at a lower dose under nonlethal radiated condition.Methods A syngeneic C57BL/6 mouse model, transplanted with 1×107 bone marrow cells and exposed to 2.5 Gy whole body irradiation (WBI), was selected to study the chimerism of cells from green fluorescent protein positive (GFP+) transgenic mice. The control group was injected with GFP+ cells without receiving irradiation. In addition, an allogenic transplantation model of BALB/c mice was also investigated which was infused by GFP+ cells from C57BL/6 mice. The engraftment of bone marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) was detected by immunohistochemistry in bone marrow, liver, lung, small intestine and spleen.Results The transplanted bone marrow cells successfully grafted in the haematopoietic tissues from syngeneic GFP transgenic mice. The transplanted GFP+ cells were also detected in the non-haematopoietic tissues, such as the small intestine, liver, spleen and lung, after irradiation. However, a lethal dose irradiation of 8 Gy was required to establish successful chimerism in allogeneic transplantation model by infusing the bone marrow cells from C57BL/6 mice to BALB/c mice.Conclusions Bone marrow-derived cells can be successfully grafted into various recipient tissues receiving a 2.5 Gy dose of radiation in syngeneic mice, but not in allogeneic mice. This nonlethal model may help to further study the plasticity and mechanism of bone marrow-derived cells in tissue repair and regeneration after radiation injury.