Rotavirus immunity in the mouse

Naturally attenuated animal rotaviruses have been tested as anti-rotavirus vaccines with moderate success. The development of improved vaccines will rely on our understanding of the immune mechanism that mediate clearance and protection from rotaviral reinfection. The mouse model of rotavirus infection is a versatile tool for studying these mechanisms: mice have a relative low cost and there is a rapidly increasing number of immunological reagents to study rotavirus immunology. This review covers recent data on the mouse model of rotavirus infection. We show that both effector arms of the immune system (CD8+ T cells and B cells) mediate anti-rotavirus effects in vivo.