Germ-free humanized mice reveal a crucial role for the gut microbiota in HIV and EBV pathogenesis

Directly analyzing the role of the gut microbiota during the course of infection with human-specific pathogens is not possible with existing methods. To overcome this problem, we developed a germ-free precision mouse model, which we used to compare the acquisition, replication and pathogenesis of HIV and Epstein-Barr virus.