Cells. 2024 Oct 12. pii: 1686. [Epub ahead of print]13(20):
Milita Darguzyte,
Philipp Antczak,
Daniel Bachurski,
Patrick Hoelker,
Nima Abedpour,
Rahil Gholamipoorfard,
Hans A Schlößer,
Kerstin Wennhold,
Martin Thelen,
Maria A Garcia-Marquez,
Johannes Koenig,
Andreas Schneider,
Tobias Braun,
Frank Klawonn,
Michael Damrat,
Masudur Rahman,
Jan-Malte Kleid,
Sebastian J Theobald,
Eugen Bauer,
Constantin von Kaisenberg,
Steven R Talbot,
Leonard D Shultz,
Brian Soper,
Renata Stripecke.
BACKGROUND: Humanized mice transplanted with CD34+ hematopoietic cells (HPCs) are broadly used to study human immune responses and infections in vivo and for testing therapies pre-clinically. However, until now, it was not clear whether interactions between the mouse major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs) and/or the human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) were necessary for human T-cell development and immune reactivity.METHODS: We evaluated the long-term (20-week) human hematopoiesis and human T-cell development in NOD Scid Gamma (NSG) mice lacking the expression of MHC class I and II (NSG-DKO). Triplicate experiments were performed with HPCs obtained from three donors, and humanization was confirmed in the reference strain NOD Rag Gamma (NRG). Further, we tested whether humanized NSG-DKO mice would respond to a lentiviral vector (LV) systemic delivery of HLA-A*02:01, HLA-DRB1*04:01, human GM-CSF/IFN-α, and the human cytomegalovirus gB antigen.
RESULTS: Human immune reconstitution was detectable in peripheral blood from 8 to 20 weeks after the transplantation of NSG-DKO. Human single positive CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells were detectable in lymphatic tissues (thymus, bone marrow, and spleen). LV delivery harnessed the detection of lymphocyte subsets in bone marrow (αβ and γδ T-cells and NK cells) and the expression of HLA-DR. Furthermore, RNA sequencing showed that LV delivery increased the expression of different human reactome pathways, such as defense responses to other organisms and viruses.
CONCLUSIONS: Human T-cell development and reactivity are independent of the expression of murine MHCs in humanized mice. Therefore, humanized NSG-DKO is a promising new model for studying human immune responses, as it abrogates the xenograft mouse MHC interference.
Keywords: HLA; IFN; MHC; NSG; T-cell; humanized mice; immunization; lentivirus; stem cell transplantation