Bat-mouse bone marrow chimera: a novel animal model for dissecting the uniqueness of the bat immune system

Yong, Kylie Su Mei; Ng, Justin Han Jia; Her, Zhisheng; Hey, Ying Ying; Tan, Sue Yee; Tan, Wilson Wei Sheng; Irac, Sergio Erdal; Liu, Min; Chan, Xue Ying; Gunawan, Merry; Foo, Randy Jee Hiang; Low, Dolyce Hong Wen; Mendenhall, Ian Hewitt; Chionh, Yok Teng; Dutertre, Charles-Antoine; Chen, Qingfeng; Wang, Lin-Fa

The normal regulatory interactions that lead to homeostasis within an intact immune system, appears to be unaltered in bat BM cell-reconstituted NSG mice. Even though the study of immune cell responses in bat-mice is restricted due to the current shortage of bat-specific research tools, the observation that a rapid development of bat-specific antibodies post NP-KLH immunization suggests that bat humoral immune responses involving antigen presenting cells and B cells within a mouse environment are intact and functional. Additionally, as KLH is known to be a T cell dependent antigen which primes antigen-specific T cell responses 59, 60 , the responses to NP-KLH suggests that bat-mice could have developed antigen-specific T cell responses. Our novel bat-mouse model paves a new direction in the field of bat research, providing a powerful platform for dissecting the unique immune system and investigation of other bat biological processes.