Nude Mouse - History and Significance

History and Significance

Nude mice were first discovered in 1962 by Dr. N. R. Grist at Ruchill Hospital's Brownlee virology laboratory in Glasgow. Because they lack a thymus, nude mice cannot generate mature T lymphocytes. Therefore they are unable to mount most types of immune responses, including:

1. antibody formation that requires CD4+ helper T cells
2. cell-mediated immune responses, which require CD4+ and/or CD8+ T cells
3. delayed-type hypersensitivity responses (require CD4+ T cells)
4. killing of virus-infected or malignant cells (requires CD8+ cytotoxic T cells)
5. graft rejection (requires both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells)

Because of the above features, nude mice have served in the laboratory to gain insights into the immune system, leukemia, solid tumors, AIDS and other forms of immune deficiency as well as leprosy. Moreover, the absence of functioning T cells prevents nude mice from rejecting not only allografts, but they cannot even reject xenografts; that is, grafts of tissue from another species.

Most strains of nude mice are slightly "leaky" and do have a few T cells, especially as they age. For this reason, nude mice are less popular in research today, since knockout mice with more complete defects in the immune system have been constructed (e.g. RAG1 and RAG2 knockout mice).