Laboratory mice may not be effective models for studying immune responses to disease.
Professor Mark Viney and colleagues from the University of Bristol and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine studied the immune systems of 460 wild mice taken from 12 sites in the UK. They compared them with mice bred in captivity.
The study found the two groups have major differences in their immune make-up, with the wild mice having highly activated immune systems.
Professor Viney said: “It is remarkable that despite the enormous number of studies of laboratory mice, ours is the first in-depth study of wild mice immune systems.
“What this shows is that wild mouse immune systems are working at ‘warp-speed’, compared with their lab cousins.
“These results point to us having to be much more cautious in extrapolating from the lab to the wild, but laboratory mouse models will continue to be hugely important in biological and biomedical research.”
Across a total of 62 immunological measures, 57 differed between wild and laboratory mice, including wild mice having more highly activated myeloid cells – the bone marrow cells that initiate immune responses.
bit.ly/BS_JuneNews6
