The use of transgenic mouse models to investigate the immune mechanisms of allergic contact dermatitis: An area of emerging opportunities

Transgenic mouse technology has been used extensively to investigate biomedically important issues in such diverse areas as mammalian development, neurophysiology, and immunology. It has also been used to develop models for several disease states that have significant medical impact. The power of this technology, which allows for either the expression of genes of interest in defined tissues or the engineered loss of function for certain genes, offers great opportunity to enhance our understanding of the complex events that culminate in allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). Recently several lines of preexisting or newly generated transgenic mice have been employed in this task. However, the use of transgenic mice in the investigation of ACD is still in the early stages and, therefore, there are many as yet unexploited opportunities in this area. The purpose of this review is to describe how the results of recent experiments employing transgenic mice have impacted on our current understanding of ACD and to enumerate possible future opportunities for the use of transgenic mouse technology to further advance that understanding.