HOXA9 and acute myeloid leukemia: MLL-AF9– or Meis1a/Hoxa9-transduced cells were serially passaged for 3 rounds in colony-forming cell (CFC) assays to generate pre–leukemic stem cells (pre-LSCs), which, on i.v. injection into primary lethally irradiated mice, become LSCs — the malignant counterparts of HSCs that drive disease progression in AML (65) (Figure 8E).