Although the AAV-HBV infection allows for the establishment of an HBV carrier model that shows a distinct level of immune tolerance and has proven invaluable for the development of potentially curative treatment approaches, it can only partially predict the treatment outcome in patients: HBV cannot spread in mice, the duration of infection in mice and chronically infected patients is very different, and the immune response in inbred mice is more restricted as our laboratory mouse strains have a different and very narrow MHC repertoire.38 The gene discussed is HLA-C; the disease is infection.