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SPONTANEOUS CANCER IN MICE *
Author(s) -
Hoag Warren G.
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1963.tb13421.x
Subject(s) - citation , annals , cancer , library science , classics , medicine , computer science , history
One of the most valuable weapons in the cancer research worker’s armament is the highly refined inbred mouse. These animals are acceptably classified as genetically inbred after at least twenty consecutive generations of brother X sister matings. As a result we have available today lines and sublines of such experimental animals which are definable, one to another, in a uniform fashion. Among these lines and sublines we have occurring a wide array of neoplasms nearly all of which are comparable in cellular type to those found in man or in other animal species. We have, however, in this unique type of experimental animal several distinct advantages. 1. The life span of the mouse is relatively short enabling study of many generations within a comparable human generation 2. Variations occur among strains in susceptibility and resistance to acute and chronic diseases, including ~ a n c e r . ~ ~ ~ J ~ , * ~ 3. The reproductive capacity of this species, even though inbred for many generations, is such that large numbers of a given subline are readily available or can be made quickly so. 4. A wealth of information is available and is continually being added to, on biological background such as gene maps, physiological and pathological parameters, histocompatibility factors and loci, and many other and varied types of information which make for by no means a completely defined animal, but a t least in a broad sense by far the most defined biological test tube 10.1.5.22.26