New animal models for hepatitis C viral infection and pathogenesis studies

Table 2 Characteristics of HCV infection in three rodent models

Rodent models	Humanization	Viremia	Duration of viral infection	Comments	Publications
uPA/SCID mice	Human hepatocyte transplantation	1 × 104 to 8 × 107 copies/mL	Up to 9 mo with maximum viremia as from one month	High viremia
				Variability of primary human hepatocytes	Mercer et al[26] 2001
					Meuleman et al[22] 2005
				Immunosuppressed mice	Kneteman et al[29] 2006
Trimera mice	Xenograft of human liver tissue	Around 7 × 104 copies/mL	Around one month with peak viremia at 18 d	Low viremia
				Variability of human liver tissues	Ilan et al[12] 2002
				Immunosuppressed mice	Eren et al[11] 2006
Rat	Immunotolerization and transplantation of a human hepatoma cell line	1-2 × 104 copies/mL	Minimum 4 mo with peak viremia at 3 mo	Low viremia
				Transplantation of a hepatoma cell line	Wu et al[8] 2005
				Immunocompetent rat