Israel, 14 Kaplan Street, Petach Tikva, 49202, Israel. Telephone: 9-723-925-3669; Fax: 9-723-925-3042; e-mail: anadir@012.net.il Received October 12, 2001; accepted for publication October 23, 2001. ©AlphaMed Press 1066-5099/2002
INTRODUCTIONThe early stages of bone marrow cell (BMC) engraftment include homing and seeding in recipient bone marrow (BM). Recent in vivo microscopy studies showed high traffic of homing BMC in recipient femur, which stopped when BMC seeded in stromal microenvironment [submitted manuscript]. If seeding is the dominant factor in determining the efficiency of homing, then adhesion should have the characteristics of the homing process. First, an approximately 16-fold higher homing efficiency of lineage -hemopoietic stem and progenitor