Humanized mice mount specific adaptive and innate immune responses to EBV and TSST-1

Here we show that transplantation of autologous human hematopoietic fetal liver CD34⁺ cells into NOD/SCID mice previously implanted with human fetal thymic and liver tissues results in long-term, systemic human T-cell homeostasis. In addition, these mice show systemic repopulation with human B cells, monocytes and macrophages, and dendritic cells (DCs). T cells in these mice generate human major histocompatibility complex class I- and class II-restricted adaptive immune responses to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection and are activated by human DCs to mount a potent T-cell immune response to superantigens. Administration of the superantigen toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1) results in the specific systemic expansion of human Vβ2 ⁺ T cells, release of human proinflammatory cytokines and localized, specific activation and maturation of human CD11c⁺ dendritic cells. This represents the first demonstration of long-term systemic human T-cell reconstitution in vivo allowing for the manifestation of the differential response by human DCs to TSST-1.