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Development of humanized mice for human hematopoisis and immunity research

We obtained peripheral blood or bone marrow samples from 27 FLT3-ITD+ acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients and created humanized mice engrafted with human AML cells. We sequenced DNA obtained from patient-derived pre-leukemia and leukemia cells and engrafted human hematopoietic cells and leukemia cells en bulk to detect AML-associated mutations and determine mutations contributing to in vivo. From five of these patients, we also performed single cell DNA sequencing to determine clonal heterogeneity and mutational complexity of human pre-leukemic and leukemic cells and to discriminate between permissive and leukemogenic mutations. Finally, inhibition of a leukemogenic mutation led to effective elimination of human AML cells in vivo, and a co-administration of an inhibitor of anti-apoptotic pathway further improved killing of AML cells in vivo.