Submitted June 24, 2002
Accepted August 16, 2002
Distinguishable live erythroid and myeloid cells in ß-globin ECFP x lysozyme EGFP mice
Susanne Heck, Olga Ermakova, Hiromi Iwasaki, Koichi Akashi, Chiao-Wang Sun, Thomas M Ryan, Tim Townes, and Thomas Graf*
Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS, Dana Farber Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Geneticslecular Genetics, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
* Corresponding author; email: graf{at}aecom.yu.edu.
We have previously described a mouse line that contains green myelomonocytic cells due to the knock-in of EGFP into the lysozyme M gene [1]. We have now created a transgenic line with cyan fluorescent erythroid cells using a ß-globin LCR driving the ECFP gene. These mice exhibit cyan fluorescent cells specifically in the erythroid compartment and in megakaryocyte-erythroid progenitors (MEPs), allowing to track live definitive erythroid cells for the first time. Crossing the animals with lysozyme EGFP mice yielded a line in which live erythroid and myeloid cells can be readily distinguished by fluorescence microscopy and by FACS. The new mouse lines should become useful tools for the direct visualization of the branching between erythroid and myelomonocytic cells during in vitro differentiation of definitive multipotent progenitors.
