High levels of viremia in hu-PBL-NOD-scid mice with HIV-1 infection.

We studied the compatibility of human lymphocyte engraftment and susceptibility to HIV-1 infection in 2 new immunodeficient mice. NOD/Shi-scid mice were generated by backcrossing of the scid mutation into NOD mice while C57BL/6-RAG2(0/0) were generated by knocking out the RAG-2 gene. Human T lymphocytes were reconstituted in new immunodeficient mouse strains. We found that the new immunodeficient mouse strains accepted human PBL engraftment and HIV-1 infection more efficiently than conventional C.B-17-scid mice. Especially in the hu-PBL-NOD/Shi-scid strain, we reproduced the high levels of HIV-1 viremia comparable to or at significantly higher levels than after HIV-1 primary infection. These results indicate that our hu-PBL-NOD-scid animal is useful for investigations of the activation mechanism in HIV-1 replication in vivo and after primary infection.