We next systematically interrogated the contribution of each of the four components of our pseudo-niche culture system (addition of MSCs, lowering of O2 from 20% to 3%, substitution of the standard to plasma-like amino-acid levels, the addition of plasma-like levels of EPO and TPO cytokines) to the output of short-term ex vivo cultures of primary AML cells using multiparametric flow cytometry. Here, EPO is linked to acute myeloid leukemia.