Lewis Thomas Laboratory, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Division of Virology, Pathogenesis and Cancer, Institute of Human Virology, Departments of Pharmacology, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
J Med Virol. 2023 Jul;95(7):e28930. doi: 10.1002/jmv.28930.
Chronic hepatitis B (CHB), caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV), remains a major medical problem. HBV has a high propensity for progressing to chronicity and can result in severe liver disease, including fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. CHB patients frequently present with viral coinfection, including human immunodeficiency virus type (HIV) and hepatitis delta virus. About 10% of chronic HIV carriers are also persistently infected with HBV, which can result in more exacerbated liver disease. Mechanistic studies of HBV-induced immune responses and pathogenesis, which could be significantly influenced by HIV infection, have been hampered by the scarcity of immunocompetent animal models. Here, we demonstrate that humanized mice dually engrafted with components of a human immune system and a human liver supported HBV infection, which was partially controlled by human immune cells, as evidenced by lower levels of serum viremia and HBV replication intermediates in the liver. HBV infection resulted in priming and expansion of human HLA-restricted CD8+ T cells, which acquired an activated phenotype. Notably, our dually humanized mice support persistent coinfections with HBV and HIV, which opens opportunities for analyzing immune dysregulation during HBV and HIV coinfection, and preclinical testing of novel immunotherapeutics.
慢性乙型肝炎(CHB)由乙型肝炎病毒(HBV)引起,仍然是一个主要的医学问题。HBV 具有很高的进展为慢性的倾向,并可能导致严重的肝脏疾病,包括纤维化、肝硬化和肝细胞癌。CHB 患者经常出现病毒合并感染,包括人类免疫缺陷病毒(HIV)和乙型肝炎 delta 病毒。约 10%的慢性 HIV 携带者也持续感染 HBV,这可能导致更严重的肝脏疾病。HBV 诱导的免疫反应和发病机制的机制研究,可能会受到 HIV 感染的显著影响,但由于缺乏免疫功能正常的动物模型而受到阻碍。在这里,我们证明了同时移植了人免疫系统和人肝成分的人源化小鼠支持 HBV 感染,这部分被人免疫细胞所控制,这可以从血清病毒血症和肝脏中 HBV 复制中间体的水平较低得到证明。HBV 感染导致了人类 HLA 限制性 CD8+T 细胞的激活和扩增。值得注意的是,我们的双重人源化小鼠支持 HBV 和 HIV 的持续合并感染,这为分析 HBV 和 HIV 合并感染期间的免疫失调以及新型免疫疗法的临床前测试提供了机会。