Humanized immune system mouse models: progress, challenges and opportunities

Todd M Allen; Michael A Brehm; Sandra Bridges; Stacy Ferguson; Priti Kumar; Oleg Mirochnitchenko; Karolina Palucka; Roberta Pelanda; Brigitte Sanders-Beer; Leonard D Shultz; Lishan Su; Mercy PrabhuDas

doi:10.1038/s41590-019-0416-z

Humanized immune system mouse models: progress, challenges and opportunities

Nat Immunol. 2019 Jul;20(7):770-774. doi: 10.1038/s41590-019-0416-z.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
² Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
³ Division of AIDS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, USA.
⁴ Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, USA.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Infectious Diseases, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁶ Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
⁷ The Jackson Laboratory, Farmington, CT, USA.
⁸ Department of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO, USA.
⁹ The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, USA.
¹⁰ University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹¹ Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, USA. mprabhudas@niaid.nih.gov.

Abstract

Over 30 key leaders in the field participated in a 1-day workshop entitled ‘Recent Advances and Opportunities in the Development and Use of Humanized Immune System Mouse Models’ to discuss the benefits and limitations of using human fetal tissue versus non-fetal tissue sources to generate mice with a humanized immune system. This Comment summarizes the workshop discussions, including highlights of some of the key advances made through the use of humanized mice in improving the understanding of immune system function and developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of infectious, immunological and allergic diseases, as well as current challenges in the production, characterization and utilization of these animal models.

Publication types

Congress
Letter

MeSH terms

Animals
Disease Models, Animal
Humans
Immune System*
Mice
Mice, Transgenic*
Models, Animal*

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding