Lettersto the Editor

To theEditor:Between 1992 and 2000, 21papers1–21were published that used rats from inbred colonies in Melbourne and Tokyo thatwere believed to be of the Donryu (DRY) strain. These rats were thought tohave been the same strain as DRY used by Dr Tanase in early breedingexperiments in relation to blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats(SHR).22,23The original DRY strain had been held at the Sankyo Co, Ltd, in Japan. At sometime before 1991, however, it appears that in the company’s laboratoriesthere had been an unrecognised substitution of Fisher344 (F344) for DRY (see below) and that authentic DRY were culled and nolonger exist.In …