Bone marrow chimera experiments to determine the contribution of hematopoietic stem cells to cerebral angiogenesis.

The generation of bone marrow chimera in mice is a valuable tool to study a variety of cellular processes. Donor bone marrow cells expressing reporter genes have been used to study the process of cell differentiation and the mechanisms involved in bone marrow cell recruitment. Bone marrow cells bearing genetic manipulation have been used in bone marrow chimeras to elucidate the role of molecules in different physiological and pathological settings. Since in the normal adult brain angiogenesis does not occur, models of brain injury like ischemia and tumor growth have been used to study the contribution of bone marrow-derived cells to the cerebral vasculature. This chapter describes the procedures to perform bone marrow transplantation in order to study the contribution of bone marrow-derived cells to vascularization in an orthotopic glioma model.