Insidious Infections of Laboratory Rodents Still Affect Research: Detection, Prevalence and Impact

摘要

Despite considerable effort to produce, maintain and use laboratory rodents free of potentially consequential infections, adventitious viral, bacterial and parasitic infections are still common. The reasons that infections of laboratory rodents are still an issue in 2008 are complex. Except RRV and some Helicobacters, none commonly produce gross or microscopic lesions. The remainder are variably called "subclinical" or "non-pathogenic," terms often used for convenience, but without semantic precision. This paper will use sub-clinical to mean no observable clinical signs, as well as no gross or light microscopic lesions. There is no universal standard of which organisms, especially bacteria, should be tolerated. For example, there is disagreement asto which (bacteria) constitute normal flora or risks to research, as well as which can be reasonably eliminated. Many of the infectious agents which are currently prevalent have only been discovered recently. Inter-institutional sharing of specialized research models, such as genetically engineered mice, can present disease control and detection problems greater than those typically experienced in dealing with major vendors. The literature on these infectious agents is not especially helpful. Little research money is awarded specifically to study research implications of adventitious infection of laboratory rodents. Many papers are retrospective and lack appropriate control groups, i.e., an experiment failed, then an infection was discovered and blamewas assigned.