“Control” laboratory rodents are metabolically morbid: Why it matters

Bronwen Martin; Sunggoan Ji; Stuart Maudsley; Mark P. Mattson

doi:10.1073/pnas.0912955107

New Research In

Edited by Solomon Snyder, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, and approved February 4, 2010 (received for review December 23, 2009)

Abstract

Failure to recognize that many standard control rats and mice used in biomedical research are sedentary, obese, glucose intolerant, and on a trajectory to premature death may confound data interpretation and outcomes of human studies. Fundamental aspects of cellular physiology, vulnerability to oxidative stress, inflammation, and associated diseases are among the many biological processes affected by dietary energy intake and exercise. Although overfed sedentary rodents may be reasonable models for the study of obesity in humans, treatments shown to be efficacious in these animal models may prove ineffective or exhibit novel side effects in active, normal-weight subjects.

Footnotes

¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mattsonm{at}grc.nia.nih.gov.
Author contributions: B.M., S.M., and M.P.M. designed research; B.M. and S.M. performed research; B.M., S.J., S.M., and M.P.M. analyzed data; and B.M., S.M., and M.P.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.