Development of a Laboratory Colony of the Musk Shrew (Suncus murinus, Insectivora) Exhibiting a High Incidence of Spontaneous Diabetes Mellitus

摘要

To the authors' knowledge, diabetes mellitus has not been reported in any insectivore species. We report diabetes mellitus in the musk shrew and describe the development of a laboratory colony characterized by a high incidence of the disease. In September 1989 two male shrews of the BAN (1) and BAN-kc (2) lines originated from Bangladesh wild-caught shrews in 1983 were observed to have marked polyuria and glycosuria. A foundation breeding stock for glycosuric shrews was started in November 1989 withtwo glycosuric males and four phenotypically normal (nonglycosuric) females of the Bangladesh lines. Later a glycosuric female of the BAN line was introduced into this stock. Many glycosuric males and females were obtained from various mat-ings conducted to propagate glycosuric shrews in the foundation stock in 1990 (Table 1), since few glycosuric shrews appeared in the original BAN and BAN-kc lines. From this observation we considered the glycosuric character to be hereditary.