Modeling Immunity and Inflammation in Stroke

The recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Science article by Seok et al1 demonstrating a poor correlation of human versus mouse genomic responses to acute inflammatory insults has unfortunately sounded an alarm in the stroke community about the use of preclinical experiments in mice to inform about inflammation in human stroke. There are significant weaknesses in the Seok’s report that detract from an easy application of its conclusions to stroke research, including relevance of the studied inflammatory conditions (trauma, burns, and endotoxemia) and disregard for age, sex, and comorbid differences in humans or mice. That being said, there remains an ongoing controversy about how best to translate inflammation information from mouse and other animal models to human stroke, especially in light of the almost universal disappointing failures in treatment approaches. The many issues involved have been expertly explored in the opinion …