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Review
. 2023 Jan 4;15(1):158.
doi: 10.3390/v15010158.

Animal Model Alternatives in Filovirus and Bornavirus Research

Lina Widerspick  1   2 , Johanna Friederike Steffen  1 , Dennis Tappe  1   3 , César Muñoz-Fontela  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Animal Model Alternatives in Filovirus and Bornavirus Research

Lina Widerspick et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

The order Mononegavirales contains a variety of highly pathogenic viruses that may infect humans, including the families Filoviridae, Bornaviridae, Paramyxoviridae, and Rhabodoviridae. Animal models have historically been important to study virus pathogenicity and to develop medical countermeasures. As these have inherent shortcomings, the rise of microphysiological systems and organoids able to recapitulate hallmarks of the diseases caused by these viruses may have enormous potential to add to or partially replace animal modeling in the future. Indeed, microphysiological systems and organoids are already used in the pharmaceutical R&D pipeline because they are prefigured to overcome the translational gap between model systems and clinical studies. Moreover, they may serve to alleviate ethical concerns related to animal research. In this review, we discuss the value of animal model alternatives in human pathogenic filovirus and bornavirus research. The current animal models and their limitations are presented followed by an overview of existing alternatives, such as organoids and microphysiological systems, which might help answering open research questions.

Keywords: animal models; bornaviruses; filoviruses; microphysiological systems; organoids; organs-on-chips.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Capabilities and limitations of established animal models in filovirus and bornavirus disease. Scheme of human-pathogenic Filoviridae and Bornaviridae animal models. Left: Filovirus animal models: non-human primates, ferrets, guinea pigs, hamsters, wild-type mice, and immune-deficient or humanized mice. Right: common animal models for human bornavirus encephalitis including non-human primates, shrews, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rats, and rabbits. Expenditure summarizes cost, availability, personnel and space requirements. Created with Biorender.com.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Capabilities and limitations of systems logy. Summary of experimental read-outs attainable in the respective systems. Created with Biorender.com.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

J.F.S. is supported by the Joachim Herz Foundation, Hamburg, as a member of the graduate school of Infection Biology of Tropical Pathogens at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (grant number 34901609). Work by L.W. is supported by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment Bf3R grant (grant number 60-0102-01.P616).