title: Modeling hepatitis B virus infection, immunopathology and therapy in mice.
abstract: Despite the availability of a preventive vaccine, chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection-induced liver diseases continue to be a major global public health problem. HBV naturally infects only humans and chimpanzees. This narrow host range has hindered our ability to study the characteristics of the virus and how it interacts with its host. It is thus important to establish small animal models to study HBV infection, persistence, clearance and the immunopathogenesis of chronic hepatitis B. In this review, we briefly summarize currently available animal models for HBV research, then focus on mouse models, especially the recently developed humanized mice that can support HBV infection and immunopathogenesis in vivo. This article is part of a symposium in Antiviral Research on "From the discovery of the Australia antigen to the development of new curative therapies for hepatitis B: an unfinished story."
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Moses T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Bility
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Electronic address: lsu@med.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Lishan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Su
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D016513:Mice, SCID; D008822:Mice, Transgenic
keywords: Antiviral therapy; Hepatitis B virus; Immunopathogenesis; Mouse model