GenPharm International has obtained exclusive worldwiderights from Harvard University to a new variety of immune-deficient transgenic mice, the company announced Monday.

The Mountain View, Calif., company will add the mouse --deficient in certain components of the immune system -- toits other transgenic mouse, whose immune deficits arecomplementary.

The new mice lack the cell surface proteins coded by the genecomplex called major histocompatibility complex (MHC) TypeII. In March, GenPharm licensed mice unable to express MHCType I proteins from the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology and the Whitehead Institute.

GenPharm will develop the mice both for in-house research andfor sale to other researchers, said Howar Rosen, manager ofbusiness development.

The mice, with their complementary deficiencies, should proveuseful as models for understanding immune disorders andcancer.

The mice that fail to express MHC I also lack "killer" T cells,which normally attack and kill infected cells. The new mice donot make helper T cells.

Class I surface proteins interact with viral surface proteins,then flag killer T cells to attack. Class II proteins signalhelper T cells to make cytokines and B cells to makeantibodies.

Because MHC is the key to the body's recognition of "self" asopposed to "foreign" proteins, GenPharm also hopes to use bothmice as models to develop universal donor cells, into whichgenes can be carried into the body for gene therapy withoutimmune system interference, Rosen said.

The mice were described in Science on Sept. 20 by researchersat Harvard and Tufts universities. "We learned of their workand arranged to get the mouse" before the work appeared inprint, Rosen told BioWorld.

The privately held company will pay an initial license fee androyalties on sales. The Harvard scientists have filed for apatent on the mouse, Rosen said. -- Roberta Friedman, Ph.D.

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