The use of bone marrow-chimeric mice in elucidating immune mechanisms

DNA vaccines hold promise for generating protective immunity against a wide variety of pathogens. Understanding the mechanism by which vaccine-encoded antigens are processed and presented to naïve lymphocytes in the host is critical for rational design of efficacious vaccines. This chapter provides practical guide in making irradiation-induced bone marrow chimeric mice, which can be used to dissect a variety of aspects of antigen presentation by the hematopoietic vs nonhematopoietic compartments.