Leveraging dirty mice that have microbial exposure to improve preclinical models of human immune status and disease

Abstract

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hosted a two-day virtual workshop on leveraging microbial exposure to improve mouse models of human immune status and disease. The workshop’s objective was to evaluate the current state of knowledge in the field and to identify gaps, challenges and future directions.

Fig. 1 |. Immune responses and diseases of microbial experienced humans and mice compared to those of SPF mice.

Humans and mouse models that mimic microbial experience of humans are depicted in the top rows. Green grass indicates exposure to natural environment. Different immune status and diseases are shown in the left column. The arrows indicate the strength of the response or severity of diseases compared to those of SPF mice. The direction of the arrow indicates findings in most cited publications to date and presentations at this conference. For example, across models there was an increased response to challenge with bacteria, viruses and worms. The phase 1 clinical response of humans and the response of wildling mice in the preclinical model refers to the cytokine storm. Absence of arrows indicates that data are not available yet. Asterisks indicates unpublished data as presented at this conference (see text for details). EAE, experimental allergic encephalitis as a model for multiple sclerosis in humans; IrAE, immune-related adverse events; YFV, yellow fever virus.