Why the study?
Specific-pathogen-free mice lack infection history and do not always accurately recapitulate human immune responses, while models introducing microbial exposure have confounding factors and poorly characterized eukaryotic viromes.
Population
Specific-pathogen-free (SPF) mice and pet store mice
Comparison
Exposure of SPF mice to natural mouse pathogens from pet store mice via cohousing
Design
Preclinical transmission model study
Authors
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SPF mice may inadequately model human infections due to absent virome exposure; leaves open whether virome reconstitution enhances translational relevance.
The dirty mouse cohousing model exhibits significant heterogeneity in virome diversity and transmission kinetics, highlighting the need to characterize pet store reservoirs to better model human microbial exposure.
Putri et al. (2025) studied this question.
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