Humanized Mouse Models

Humanized mouse models are beneficial tools for immuno-oncology and infectious disease research. They have improved the ability to predict human responses to new therapeutics in clinical development.

Depending on research requirements, it is critical that researchers have the ability to obtain study-ready animals or maintain the option to humanize the mice in-house to meet their project timelines and study requirements.

lab technician holding white mouse

Choose the Humanized Mouse Model Option That's Best for You

When your research requires humanized animal models, Charles River offers multiple options, both founded on the NCG triple-immunodeficient mouse.*
* Available in North America only

Advance Your Program with Humanized Mouse Models

Currently, the Charles River NCG triple-immunodeficient mouse model is the foundation for our humanization portfolio. Its unique phenotype allows it to host xenograft cells, tissue, and human immune system components. It displays noticeable improvements of foreign tissue transplantation and engraftment, compared to previous generations of immunocompromised mice.

The NCG mouse is best suited for studies on tumor biology, immuno-oncology, infectious diseases, graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), hematopoiesis, and tissue transplantation.  

Mouse icon for cross linking to Discovery Services

Charles River's expertise in oncology drug discovery, spanning from target identification to IND studies, makes us ideally suited to run your humanized mouse tumor model studies for you.


Charles River Hu-Mouse™ Models

We now have two options available for humanized mouse models, engrafted with either PBMC or CD34+ stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. These models have been shown to respond to known immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies.

CD34+ PBMC
HSC derived from umbilical cord; multiple donors in each cohort. A single cohort of animals can engraft with a single donor.
~Week 15: > 25% huCD45 blood cells Week 3: ~30% huCD45 blood cells
T cell focused T cell focused
Long-term studies (no GvHD) Short-term studies due to GvHD
Number of T cells may vary with multiple donors GvHD onset varies with donor
  Less costly approach

The ability of human immune cells to engraft in the NCG mouse makes it a powerful tool to evaluate compounds for immuno-oncology, GvHD, infectious diseases, and inflammatory diseases.
 

group of white mice

Are humanized mice the emerging model to evaluate immune checkpoint therapeutics?

Learn more from our scientific poster, Validation of Humanized PD-1 Knock-in Mice as an Emerging Model to Evaluate Human-Specific PD-1 Therapeutics.

Download Poster


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Humanized Mice

  • What are humanized mice used for?

    Humanized mouse models are used to compare tumor therapies, study the human immune system, and to study the function of genes in healthy and diseased models.

  • What are the benefits of the NCG humanized mouse model?

    The HuPBMC-NCG mouse is a convenient ready to use model that is pre-injected and tested for effective engraftment in the NCG mouse model. Pre-screened PBMCs save time, labor, and costs associated with donor qualification. The PBMC cell inventory has been screened for engraftment rate, body weight loss, and study term.

  • How are humanized mouse models created?

    The NCG model's immune system is humanized by irradiating and destroying the host immune system. Once the immune system is knocked out, human PBMCs are injected to create a humanized model. Engrafted human cells can be detected as early as 10 days after the PBMC injection.


    Humanized Mice

    Humanized mouse models can be used for tumor models to screen cancer therapies in an intact human immune system.
    Schematic of humanized mouse tumor models. The mouse immune systems are humanized by irradiating and destroying the host immune system and introducing human immune cells.

  • Can I create a PBMC humanized mice for my study in-house?

    Create your own humanized mouse models on your own timeline. The NCG/PBMC Humanization Kit allows researchers to avoid additional work needed to qualify PBMC donor cells. By providing a "kit" of both cells and mice together, this put the researcher in control of study timing, a distinct advantage when dealing with a limited therapeutic window. The PBMCs are transplanted into NCG mice through tail vein injection.


    Advantages

    • Study-ready: Cells are pretested for engraftment in the NCG mouse model.
    • Efficient: Cells have been prescreened, eliminating time, labor and cost.
    • Flexible: Can be humanized according to study timelines.
    • Trusted Source: This kit is a product of a partnership between Charles River and HemaCare.