Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) research has suffered from the inability to study the human immune system response to HIV in model organisms. The current model of choice is the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in the rhesus macaque, but this model is limited by genetic differences between humans and macaques and between the two viruses. The genetic diversity of macaques also complicates the study of their immune responses to the virus. While mouse models provide a higher degree of genetic homogeneity, HIV does not naturally infect mice.
Researchers have now found a way around this problem. Todd M. Allen and his team at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard (Charlestown, MA) studied mice that had been engrafted with human bone-marrow cells, liver and thymus tissue (BLT). The researchers infected these 'humanized' BLT mice with HIV-1 and found that their immune responses to the virus closely resembled those of HIV-1-infected humans (Sci. Transl. Med. published online 18 July 2012 doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.3003984). Furthermore, the virus rapidly evolved to adapt to the immune responses in these mice, similar to the way it does in infected humans.
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