Mice with chimeric livers are an improved model for human lipoprotein metabolism.

Objective: Rodents are poor model for human hyperlipidemias because total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein levels are very low on a normal diet. Lipoprotein metabolism is primarily regulated by hepatocytes and we therefore assessed whether chimeric mice extensively repopulated with human cells can model human lipid and bile acid metabolism.

Design: FRG [ F ah(-/-) R ag2(-/-)Il2r g (-/-)]) mice were repopulated with primary human hepatocytes.