Humanized mice and their use in modeling of human infectious diseases

Abstract

Mice are the primary research model in biology and physiology. However, in order to be able to study human physiology and the development of human-specific diseases in mouse models, new strains had to be created. For this purpose, humanized mice that express human genes or have transplanted human tissues or cells were developed. In this paper, we mainly describe mouse strains in which the human immune system can be sustained. The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a lot of interest among researchers in the biology of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Therefore, later in the article, we describe animal models that allow studying SARS-CoV-2 infection. We describe transgenic mouse models expressing the human ACE2 gene, transgenic mice with the human immune system, and other animal models used in COVID-19 research.