Stereotactic Transplantation of Cells in Mice

All animal experiments were conducted on a protocol approved by the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and all experiments complied with all relevant ethical regulations. Recipient ICR-SCID mice (C.B-Igh-1^b/IcrTac-Prkdc^scid) were purchased from Taconic (Hudson, NY). Male and female 9- to 11-week-old mice were anesthetized with isofluorane (Abbot Laboratories, England) followed by an intraperitoneal injection of 225–240 mg/kg xylazine solution and then maintained on isoflurane by inhalation throughout the procedure. After removing hair from the head region, the mice were immobilized in a Cunningham™ Mouse/Neonatal Rat Adaptor (Stoelting, Wood Dale, IL) stereotactic apparatus fitted into an E15600 Lab Standard Stereotaxic Instrument (Stoelting, Wood Dale, IL), and surgery area scrubbed with 1% povidone-iodine. A 10 mm skin incision was made along the midline. The tip of a 31G ½ inch needle mounted on a Hamilton syringe (Hamilton, Reno, NV) served as the reference point. A 1mm burr-hole was drilled into the skull. [34 (link), 44 (link)]