Cell culture and animal models for human viral hepatitis

Abstract

Human hepatitis viruses are currently the subjects of intense investigation because of the tremendous clinical impact of these agents on human health. For other viral infections, cell culture and animal models have played crucial roles in the development of vaccines and drug therapies as well as characterization of viral life cycles. However, for human hepatitis viruses, models have been limited. The chimpanzee model is considered to be the most valuable, because it provides the closest match to clinical human hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. Due to the expense and short supply, however, the use of this model is restricted. Thus, there is a great demand for the development of new convenient animal models of human hepatitis viral infection. This review will focus current cell culture and animal models to study HBV and HCV.