Cited by 1,072Immune responses and vaccinationsImmunotoxicology and immune responsesT-cell and B-cell Immunology

Normalizing the environment recapitulates adult human immune traits in laboratory mice

Open access
Beura, Lalit K., Hamilton, Sara E., Bi, Kevin, Schenkel, Jason M., Odumade, Oludare A., Casey, Kerry A., Thompson, Emily A., Fraser, Kathryn A. +8 more·2016·Nature

Abstract

Our current understanding of immunology was largely defined in laboratory mice, partly because they are inbred and genetically homogeneous, can be genetically manipulated, allow kinetic tissue analyses to be carried out from the onset of disease, and permit the use of tractable disease models. Comparably reductionist experiments are neither technically nor ethically possible in humans. However, there is growing concern that laboratory mice do not reflect relevant aspects of the human immune system, which may account for failures to translate disease treatments from bench to bedside. Laboratory mice live in abnormally hygienic specific pathogen free (SPF) barrier facilities. Here we show that standard laboratory mouse husbandry has profound effects on the immune system and that environmental changes produce mice with immune systems closer to those of adult humans. Laboratory mice--like newborn, but not adult, humans--lack effector-differentiated and mucosally distributed memory T cells. These cell populations were present in free-living barn populations of feral mice and pet store mice with diverse microbial experience, and were induced in laboratory mice after co-housing with pet store mice, suggesting that the environment is involved in the induction of these cells. Altering the living conditions of mice profoundly affected the cellular composition of the innate and adaptive immune systems, resulted in global changes in blood cell gene expression to patterns that more closely reflected the immune signatures of adult humans rather than neonates, altered resistance to infection, and influenced T-cell differentiation in response to a de novo viral infection. These data highlight the effects of environment on the basal immune state and response to infection and suggest that restoring physiological microbial exposure in laboratory mice could provide a relevant tool for modelling immunological events in free-living organisms, including humans.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/nature17655

Cites

42 of 42 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Compared to free-living mice or laboratory animals exposed to gut flora from wild mice, SPF animals have a more limited microbial community and are also more susceptible to inflammatory diseases, with a reduced immune repertoire including deficits in memory responses.

    “compared to free-living mice or laboratory animals exposed to gut flora from wild mice, SPF animals have a more limited microbial community and are also more susceptible to inflammatory diseases, with a reduced immune repertoire including deficits in memory responses”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Beura, L. K., Hamilton, S. E., Bi, K., Schenkel, J. M., Odumade, O. A., Casey, K. A., Thompson, E. A., Fraser, K. A., Rosato, P. C., Filali-Mouhim, A., Sekaly, R. P., Jenkins, M. K., Vezys, V., Haining, W. N., Jameson, S. C., & Masopust, D.
Affiliations
  • University of Minnesota (US)
  • Boston Children's Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
  • Jameson, Stephen C.
  • Masopust, David
Venue
Nature
Published
2016-04
Volume
532
Issue
7600
Pages
512-516
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2337334490
Cited by
1,072
References
42
Citations by year
2026: 83 · 2025: 80 · 2024: 94 · 2023: 76 · 2022: 92 · 2021: 139 · 2020: 114 · 2019: 118 · 2018: 111 · 2017: 119 · 2016: 45
FWCI
79.28
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000114)
  • National Cancer Institute (P30CA077598)
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI084913, R01AI075168, R01AI111671, R01AI116678, R37AI084913, T32AI007313, P01AI035296)
  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immune responses and vaccinations
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immunotoxicology and immune responses
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › T-cell and B-cell Immunology
Keywords
environmental enrichment, cohousing, specific pathogen-free mice, immune system maturation, memory T cells, mucosal immunity, infection resistance, translational immunology, mouse husbandry, T cell differentiation, translational failure, preclinical models
MeSH terms
Adult, Animals, Animal Husbandry, Animals, Laboratory, Animals, Wild, Cell Differentiation, Environment, Environmental Exposure, Female, Humans, Immune System, Immunity, Immunity, Innate, Immunologic Memory, Infant, Newborn, Male, Phenotype, Specific Pathogen-Free Organisms, T-Lymphocytes, Virus Diseases, Models, Animal, Mice

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review