My watch list
my.bionity.com  
Login  

C57BL/6



Animal testing

Main articles
Animal testing
Alternatives to animal testing
Testing on: invertebrates ·
Frogs · Primates · Rabbits · Rodents
Animal testing regulations
History of animal testing
History of model organisms
Laboratory animal sources
Toxicology testing

Issues
Biomedical Research
Animal rights/Animal welfare
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act
Great ape research ban
International trade in primates

Controversial experiments
Britches · Brown Dog affair
Cambridge University primates
Pit of despair
Silver Spring monkeys
Unnecessary Fuss

Companies
Charles River Laboratories, Inc.
Covance · Harlan
Huntingdon Life Sciences
UK lab animal suppliers
Nafovanny · Shamrock

Groups/campaigns
Americans for Medical Progress
AALAS · AAAS
Boyd Group · BUAV
Dr Hadwen Trust · PETA
Foundation For Biomedical Research
National Anti-Vivisection Society
Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine
Primate Freedom Project
Pro-Test · SPEAK
Research Defence Society
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty

Writers/activists
Colin Blakemore · Carl Cohen
Gill Langley · Ingrid Newkirk
Neal Barnard · Jerry Vlasak
Simon Festing · Tipu Aziz

Categories
·

Related templates
Template:Animal rights

This box: view  talk  edit

C57BL/6, often referred to as "C57 black 6" or just "black 6" is a common inbred strain of lab mouse. It is probably the most widely used "genetic background" for genetically modifed mice for use as models of human disease. They are the most widely used lab mouse strain, due to the availability of congenic strains, easy breeding, robustness, and their relationship to GM models, making them ideal controls.

Contents

Appearance and behavior

  Dark brown, nearly black, coat. Easily irritable temperament. They have a tendency to bite, and cannot be handled like a typical pet mouse or even more docile laboratory strains such as BALB/c.

C57BL/6 mice which are group-housed also display barbering behavior, in which the dominant mouse in a cage selectively removes hair from its subordinate cage mates. Mice that have been barbered have large bald patches on their bodies, commonly around the head, snout, and shoulders, although barbering may appear anywhere on the body. Both hair and vibrissae may be removed. Barbering is more frequently seen in female mice; male mice are more likely to display dominance through fighting.[1]

C57BL/6 as a "Th1 responder"

C57BL/6 has certain immunophenotypes that distinguish it from other inbred strains like BALB/c. For example the immunological response to the same pathogen in C57BL/6 mice is often of an opposite spectrum compared to BALBb/c mice, namely C57BL/6 shows Th1 and BALB/c shows Th2 response in response to intracellular pathogen Leishmania major, where a Th1 response results in a resistant ie healer phenotype (since the pathogen is intracellular), whereas a Th2 response results in a susceptible (nonhealer) phenotype.

Though this trait had been observed in these two strains since 1988, in an article published in 2000 by Mills et al.[2] these observations were systematized and generalized to other strains of mice. Even without biasing towards Th1 or Th2 by priming through infection, the strains differ in their macrophages' ability to be activated, as measured from their arginine metabolic programs when stimulated by Interferon gamma or LPS or both:

  • M-1 macrophages from typical Th1 responders: C57BL/6 or B10.D2 mice, preferentially produce NO by action of iNOS
  • M-2 macrophages from typical Th2 responders: DBA or BALB/c mice, preferentially produce ornithine and urea by action of arginase.

Response to diseases

Plasmodium (malaria)

  • P. yoelii YM = lethal
  • P. yoelii 17XL = lethal
  • P. yoelii 17XNL = "non-lethal" (though up to 50% mortality is not unusual)
  • P. berghii = lethal (with cerebral malaria)
  • P. vinkii = lethal
  • P. chabaudi AS = non-lethal

References

  1. ^ Sarna JR, Dyck RH, Whishaw IQ. 2000. The Dalila effect: C57BL6 mice barber whiskers by plucking. Behavioral Brain Research, 108(1):39-45. PubMedID: 10680755.
  2. ^ Mills, Charles D., Kincaid, Kristi, Alt, Jennifer M., Heilman, Michelle J., Hill, Annette M. M-1/M-2 Macrophages and the Th1/Th2 Paradigm. J Immunol 2000 164: 6166-6173
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "C57BL/6". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE