Loss of survivin decreases self-renewal, sensitizes leukemia cells to chemotherapy, and abrogates leukemia. (A) A lentiviral survivin IRES GFP (survivin-GFP) was used to overexpress survivin in ALL. GFP fluorescence imaging of colonies from control and transduced ALL cells (100× magnification; left panel) and counts of colonies of primary ALL (LAX7R) and survivin-GFP–transduced cells after primary and secondary replating (middle and right panel). (B) Kaplan-Meier survival curves of NSG mice engrafted with survivin-GFP or empty-GFP transduced primary ALL cells. (C) Primary ALL cells (LAX7R) cells transduced with either nonsilencing or survivin shRNA. Colony images (10×; left panel) and colony counts of primary and secondary plating (middle right panel). (D) Survival of NSG mice recipients of chemotherapy (VDL) and primary ALL transduced with either nonsilencing or survivin shRNA. The treatment (Tx) period was 28 days. (E) Representative histologic sections from mice showing BM, spleen, liver, and lung tissue stained for human CD45 (brown; 400× magnification). (F) FACS analysis of splenocytes (SPC) and BM cells from nonsilencing + VDL- and survivin shRNA + VDL–treated mice, stained for human and murine CD45. (G) Human GAPDH and murine HPRT were detected by PCR in splenocytes and BM genomic DNA.