Experimental leprosy with nude mice.

In 1960, Shepard10) reported a model of experimental leprosy of mouse by means of footpad inoculation technic. This experimental leprosy has been widely utilized in the field of leprosy research, but grwoth of Mycobacterium leprae in normal mouse foot-pad is limited and maximum harvest of M. leprae from infected normal mouse foot-pad is about 106. Several studies were reported concerning immunosuppresed animals in which M. leprae can grow more significantly than in normal mouse2,9). In 1971, a new model of experimental lepromatous leprosy of armadillos was represented by Kirchheimer and Storrs3). We attempted to find out another model of experimental lepromatous leprosy with laboratory animal, and since 1974 we have been sudying on animal inoculation of M. leprae with nude mouse. As authors4,5) reported previously, a lepromatoid lesion developed in nude mouse inoculated with M. leprae acccording to Shepard method10,11), and acid-fast bacilli obtained from the lesion were identified as M. leprae. It is important to confirm the success of secondary passage of M. leprae proliferated in lesion of first infected mouse into the other nude mice for establishing a new animal model of experimental leprosy. The next important problem is the reproducibility of animal transmission of M. leprae derived from different patients. We, therefore, carried out the studies on secondary passage of M. leprae which proliferated in lesion of first infected nude mouse to the other nude mice, and studies on animal transmission with M. leprae derived from 8 different patients by use of nude mice. The results of these experiments will be shown here.