Generation of hematopoietic lineage cell-specific chimeric mice using retrovirus-transduced fetal liver cells

Hematopoietic lineage cell-specific transgenic or knockout mice provide a valuable platform to identify the role of specific genes in hematopoiesis in vivo. Here, we describe protocols for preparation of retroviruses for overexpression or knockdown of a gene of interest, retroviral transduction of fetal liver cells, and generation of hematopoietic lineage cell-specific chimeric mice by transfer of the retrovirus-transduced fetal liver cells. This protocol is applicable for the study of in vivo functionality of a gene of interest in immune cells. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Chang et al. (2013), Lee et al. (2016), and Hong et al. (2022).