Animal models for dengue vaccine development and testing

Na, Woonsung; Yeom, Minjoo; Choi, Il-Kyu; Yook, Heejun; Song, Daesub

It is estimated that 390 million people are infected with DE-NV every year. This virus is highly infectious, and although DENV infection has not yet occurred in Korea, it is very likely to occur due to increased trade and climate warming. If this happens, it could lead to domestic economic losses, much like Middle East respiratory syndrome. Therefore, countermeasures, such as the development of vaccines and therapeutic agents, are essential, and a dengue-sensitive animal model will be the basis for such countermeasures. Following the development of a DENV receptor expression system and DENV infection model, research on other viruses likely to occur in Korea in the future, such as Zika and Chikungunya viruses, will also be possible. A dengue fever mouse disease model will provide an accurate profile of the efficacy and side effects of vaccines and candidate drugs in preclinical trials, which will lower the time and costs, required in future clinical trials. It is well known that failures in the selection of vaccine candidates and the development of new vaccines result from failure to obtain appropriate efficacy and accurate side effect profiles in animal experiments. The availability of such a system should reduce the risk of development failure and minimize the barriers to entry of small domestic companies into vaccine research, while maximizing the development capability of domestic companies.