0:00
Welcome to this lecture
on Modern Production Methodologies
of Laboratory Animals.
My name is Martin Fitzner Toft, and
I have over 10 years of experience
in large-scale commercial
breeding of mice and rats.
0:13
Looking at breeding
mice and rats, it should
be fairly simple, as depicted here.
So the short version is that you
bring a male and female together,
you turn off the light,
and something happens.
And all of a sudden,
you have a lot of pups.
But that's only the short version.
0:29
If we're looking at how
laboratory animals are used,
they are very complex machines
actually, or equipment.
So if we're looking at
the researchers' needs
in a more generic way,
what are they looking for?
They're looking for
correction and exact results,
reproducible results.
They would like to have high
sensitivity and specificity.
It should be a documented
technique, or methodology.
And they want predictive results.
And if you're looking at that--
and that's actually regardless
of the species used--
those are highly
influenced by microbial
and genetic quality
when using laboratory animals.
So that's what I will spend some
time on during this lecture.
Naturally, with my
background, it's highly
focused on mine and rats,
which are also the species
most commonly used for research.
But, many of the aspects
that I mentioned here
is also applicable to
other laboratory species
to varying degrees.
1:34
If we're starting with first
looking at the microbial quality,
this is just an example.
This is mouse hepatitis
virus, also known as MHV.
It's coronavirus.
And on the left, you see some
histopathological changes
as a result of MHV.
But those are only the direct
effects on the animals.
If we're looking at other areas
where mouse hepatitis virus might
interfere with research,
it is known that it
severely effects the
immune system, resulting
in a chronic immunodepression.
It also alters the hepatic
enzyme activity, which naturally,
if you're looking at
pharmical metabolomics,
you have a problem if the
enzyme activity is not normal.
You can see procoagulant
activity, anemia,
leukopenia, and thrombocytopenia.
It also increases the susceptibility
to other pathogens as a result
of the chronic immunodepression.
It even can cause a rejection
of xenograft tumors.
But it can actually
also be a disease model.
So it's very important that, when
you're looking at microbial quality
in the animals, that you
know which agents are there
and how they might
affect your research.
