Symposium 3

Abstract

Humanized mouse in which human cells and tissues are engrafted and functioned in the mice is an important tool to mimic human physiology for biomedical and drug discovery researches. Although rodent models are generally used in preclinical studies investigating the efficacy and safety of novel drugs, they do not accurately evaluate the drug properties due to the species barrier. Non-human primates are valuable models for human diseases compared to rodents, but it is costly and requires a special breeding facility with expert for handling under strict ethical regulations. Severe combined immunodeficient NOG or NSG mice were developed independently in 2002 at CIEA or in 2005 at Jackson Laboratory. These mice exhibited multiple immunodeficiency lacking T, B and NK cells and functional defect of other innate immune cells. Therefore, the NOG or NSG mice have enabled high engraftment of primary human cells or tissues and to differentiate human T and B cells after human hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. However, human innate immune cells including NK cells, macrophages, granulocytes, mast cells, etc. do not fully differentiated in them. We aim to establish the next generation humanized mice in which various human cytokine genes are introduced to analyze human hematopoietic and immune systems and to develop human immune disease models. In the symposium, I provide an overview of the recent advances in humanized mouse technologies and applications for drug discovery in preclinical researches. The 66th Annual Meeting of Japanese Association for Laboratory Animal Science