title: Latest animal models for anti-HIV drug discovery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  HIV research is limited by the fact that lentiviruses are highly species specific. The need for appropriate models to promote research has led to the development of many elaborate surrogate animal models.
  
  
  METHODS
  This review looks at the history of animal models for HIV research. Although natural animal lentivirus infections and chimeric viruses such as chimera between HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus and simian-tropic HIV are briefly discussed, the main focus is on small animal models, including the complex design of the 'humanized' mouse. The review also traces the historic evolution and milestones as well as depicting current models and future prospects for HIV research.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  HIV research is a complex and challenging task that is highly manpower-, money- and time-consuming. Besides factors such as hypervariability and latency, the lack of appropriate animal models that exhibit and recapitulate the entire infectious process of HIV, is one of the reasons behind the failure to eliminate the lentivirus from the human population. This obstacle has led to the exploitation and further development of many sophisticated surrogate animal models for HIV research. While there is no animal model that perfectly mirrors and mimics HIV infections in humans, there are a variety of host species and viruses that complement each other. Combining the insights from each model, and critically comparing the results obtained with data from human clinical trials should help expand our understanding of HIV pathogenesis and drive future drug development.
authors.affiliation: Paul-Ehrlich-Institute, Department of Virology, Section 2/2 AIDS, New and Emerging pathogens , Paul-Ehrlich Strasse 51-59, 63225 Langen , Germany +0049 6103 774017 ; +0049 6103 771234 ; katja.sliva@pei.de.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sliva
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019380:Anti-HIV Agents; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents
keywords: AIDS; HIV; animal models; antiretroviral drugs; humanized mice; in vivo