Inbred mouse strains have long proved useful as tools for biomedical research. They remove the effects of genetic background as an experimental variable. Within all mouse colonies, genetic drift is a recognised phenomenon and monitoring and documenting changes is important for experimental design and consistency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this observational retrospective study, an outbreak of abscesses was correlated with the presence of sharp edges in damaged plastic environmental enrichment within the cages. In 2010, Lawson reported cases of mandibulofacial and maxillofacial abscess in mice and proposed excessive barbering or grooming, leading to the mastication and fragmentation of hair, as an aetiopathogenesis of abscesses. In contrast, in this study, the presence of hair was not found in any of the histopathology, and abscesses were present in the periorbital area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince its publication, the 3Rs principle has provided a cornerstone for more ethical and humane biomedical and regulatory research. In Europe, the 3Rs principle has been incorporated into the European Directive 63/2010/EU, with the ultimate aim of fully replacing the procedures on live animals for scientific and educational purposes as soon as it is scientifically possible to do so. Thus, a critical shift in the discussion on animal use in biomedical and regulatory research is undergoing in Europe, a discussion where satisfying the "replacement" principle is becoming more and more defined as a scientific rather than ethical need.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSteroids, providing information regarding several biological patterns including stress and sexual behavior, have been investigated in different matrices in laboratory mice. Data regarding hair quantification, indicative of longer timespans when compared to blood and saliva, are lacking. The aim of the work was to analyze the hormonal hair profile of laboratory male mice and to investigate potential relationships with age and housing, as a potential tool for welfare assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA round table discussion was held during the LAVA-ESLAV-ECLAM conference on Reproducibility of Animal Studies on the 25th of September 2017 in Edinburgh. The aim of the round table was to discuss how to enhance the rate at which the quality of reporting animal research can be improved. This signed statement acknowledges the efforts that participant organizations have made towards improving the reporting of animal studies and confirms an ongoing commitment to drive further improvements, calling upon both academics and laboratory animal veterinarians to help make this cultural change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycobacterium gordonae is an occasional human pathogen associated with cutaneous infections and nodular granulomatous skin lesions. A case of cutaneous nodular infection caused by M. gordonae in a colony of African clawed frogs (Xenopus tropicalis) is described and confirms this organism to be an opportunistic frog pathogen.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMolecular diagnostic methods using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are the gold standard in Helicobacter diagnostics. Most rely on the amplification of parts of the 16S rRNA gene sequence. Therefore, the validity and accuracy of results depends heavily on the PCR design and the time of its publication because new sequences are continually being submitted to databases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComp Biochem Physiol C Toxicol Pharmacol
March 2009
Concerns about infectious diseases in fish used for research have risen along with the dramatic increase in the use of fish as models in biomedical research. In addition to acute diseases causing severe morbidity and mortality, underlying chronic conditions that cause low-grade or subclinical infections may confound research results. Here we present recommendations and strategies to avoid or minimize the impacts of infectious agents in fishes maintained in the research setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMolecular characterisation of a canine coronavirus (CCoV) isolate (BGF), associated with an outbreak of diarrhoea in puppies, showed 92.7% identity with attenuated Insavc-1 strain. Canine coronavirus BGF revealed a full length non-structural protein 3b (nsp 3b), associated with virulence in other coronaviruses, and a highly divergent region at the amino terminal domain of the membrane protein that may be implicated in avoiding the host immune reaction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) with atypical external genitalia was phenotypically and genetically characterized. Testosterone concentration correlated with that of female marmosets. Externally, there was only one opening for the urethra.
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