Animal models for dengue vaccine development and testing

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

When DENV is inoculated into the brain of suckling mice, encephalitis and paralysis are observed; therefore, this is used as a model for evaluation of the efficacy of antivirals and vaccines against the neurovirulence of DENV [13] . Although immunocompetent mice do not show the symptoms of DENV infection, high-dose inoculation can cause clinical signs, and evaluation of this immune response can improve our understanding of disease severity and the mechanism of disease development [14] . In addition, inoculation of mast cell knockout C57BL/6 mice with two different DENVs was shown to induce vascular leakage [15] . A model in which human cells were transplanted into NOD/SCID mice lacking T, B, and natural killer cells; complement-5 (C-5); and macrophages was developed, which presented a human-like disease mechanism after infection with DENV [16] . Additionally, a NOD/ SCID/IL-2Rcc -/mouse model transplanted with human cells was developed that shows human-like disease patterns [17, 18] .