This book, written by experienced geneticists, covers topics ranging from the natural history of the mouse species, its handling and reproduction in the laboratory, and its classical genetics and cytogenetics, to modern issues including the analysis of the transcriptome, the parental imprinting and X-chromosome inactivation. The strategies for creating all sorts of mutations, either by genetic engineering or by using mutagens, are also reviewed and discussed in detail. Finally, a last chapter outlines the methodology used for the analysis of complex or quantitative traits. The authors also discuss the importance of accurate phenotyping, which is now performed in the mouse clinics established worldwide and identify the limits of the mouse model, which under certain circumstances can fail to present the phenotype expected from the cognate condition in the human model. For each chapter an up-to-date list of pertinent references is provided. In short, this book offers an essential resource for all scientists who use or plan to use mice in their research.

Mouse Genetics offers for the first time in a single comprehensive volume a practical guide to mouse breeding and genetics. Nearly all human genes are present in the mouse genome, making it an ideal organism for genetic analyses of both normal and abnormal aspects of human biology. Written as a convenient reference, this book provides a complete description of the laboratory mouse, the tools used in analysis, and procedures for carrying out genetic studies, along with background material and statistical information for use in ongoing data analysis. It thus serves two purposes, first to provide students with an introduction to the mouse as a model system for genetic analysis, and to give practicing scientists a detailed guide for performing breeding studies and interpreting experimental results. All topics are developed completely, with full explanations of critical concepts in genetics and molecular biology. As investigators around the world are rediscovering both the heuristic and practical value of the mouse genome, the demand for a succinct introduction to the subject has never been greater. Mouse Genetics is intended to meet the needs of this wide audience.

The first volume in the new Cambridge Handbooks in Behavioral Genetics series, Behavioral Genetics of the Mouse provides baseline information on normal behaviors, essential in both the design of experiments using genetically modified or pharmacologically treated animals and in the interpretation and analyses of the results obtained. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the genetics of naturally occurring variation in mouse behavior, from perception and spontaneous behaviors such as exploration, aggression, social interactions and motor behaviors, to reinforced behaviors such as the different types of learning. Also included are numerous examples of potential experimental problems, which will aid and guide researchers trying to troubleshoot their own studies. A lasting reference, the thorough and comprehensive reviews offer an easy entrance into the extensive literature in this field, and will prove invaluable to students and specialists alike.

The sequencing of the mouse genome has placed the mouse front and center as the most important mammalian genetics model. However, no recent volume has detailed the genetic contributions the mouse has made across the spectrum of the life sciences; this book aims to fill that vacuum. Mouse genetics research has made enormous contributions to the understanding of basic genetics, human genetics, and livestock genetics and breeding. The wide-ranging topics in the book include the mouse genome sequencing effort, molecular dissection of quantitative traits, embryo biotechnology, ENU mutagenesis, and genetics of disease resistance, and have been written by experts in their respective fields.Chapter 1: The Beginnings - Ode To A Wee Mouse (58 KB)

US-Japan meetings on laboratory animal science have been held virtually every year since 1980 under the US-Japan Cooperative Program on Science and Technology. Over the years these meetings have resulted in a number of important documents including the Manual of Microbiologic of Monitoring of Laboratory Animals published in 1994 and the article Establishment and Preservation of Reference Inbred Strains of Rats for General Purposes published in 1991. In addition to these publications, these meetings have been instrumental in increasing awareness of the need for microbiologic monitoring of laboratory rodents and the need for genetic definition and monitoring of mice and rats.

This unique book integrates knowledge from a wide range of expertise, specifically applied to the mouse and addressed at a wide audience fro m those new to the field to experts who want an update on the state of the art. Mouse Genetics and Transgenics: A Practical Approach covers all aspects of using the mouse as a genetic model organism: care and h usbandry; archiving stocks as frozen embryos or sperm; making new muta tions by chemical mutagenesis; transgenesis; gene targeting; mapping m utations and polygenic traits by cytogenetic, genetic, and physical me ans; and disseminating and researching information via the Internet.

Marten Hofker and Jan van Deursen have assembled a multidisciplinary collection of readily reproducible methods for working with mice, and particularlyfor generating mouse models that will enable us to better understand gene function. Described in step-by-step detail by highly experienced investigators, these proven techniques include new methods for conditional, induced knockout, and transgenic mice, as well as for working with mice in such important research areas as immunology, cancer, and atherosclerosis. Such alternative strategies as random mutagenesis and viral gene transduction for studying gene function in the mouse are also presented.

Many investigators seem to be fascinated by the coat colors of the mam mals with which they work. This seems to be the case particularly for those utilizing isogenic strains of mice, not only because such strains display wide ly different phenotypes, but because scientists, by definition, are an inquisi tive lot and it is sometimes difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend how such phenotypes are produced. This bewilderment becomes even more ap parent if the investigator happens to be involved in breeding studies and a number of attractively colored animals, quite different from the original stocks, appear. Thus I can recall numerous occasions when my colleagues, frequently working in areas completely unrelated to any aspect of genetics, have come to me with an attractively pigmented animal or, more likely, with a popUlation of segregating coat color types (usually because they have not tended their animals properly and have ended up with a cage full of F 2S displaying a number of different colors). How, they ask, do such colors come about? While in some cases it is easy to take chalk in hand and explain what has been going on (segregating) and why, in other cases it is virtually impossible. It is extremely difficult because while the interactions of many coat-color factors obey the simple laws of heredity and of predictable gene interactions, others do not.

Mice are used as model organisms across a wide range of fields in science today—but it is far from obvious how studying a mouse in a maze can help us understand human problems like alcoholism or anxiety. How do scientists convince funders, fellow scientists, the general public, and even themselves that animal experiments are a good way of producing knowledge about the genetics of human behavior? In Model Behavior, Nicole C. Nelson takes us inside an animal behavior genetics laboratory to examine how scientists create and manage the foundational knowledge of their field. Behavior genetics is a particularly challenging field for making a clear-cut case that mouse experiments work, because researchers believe that both the phenomena they are studying and the animal models they are using are complex. These assumptions of complexity change the nature of what laboratory work produces. Whereas historical and ethnographic studies traditionally portray the laboratory as a place where scientists control, simplify, and stabilize nature in the service of producing durable facts, the laboratory that emerges from Nelson’s extensive interviews and fieldwork is a place where stable findings are always just out of reach. The ongoing work of managing precarious experimental systems means that researchers learn as much—if not more—about the impact of the environment on behavior as they do about genetics. Model Behavior offers a compelling portrait of life in a twenty-first-century laboratory, where partial, provisional answers to complex scientific questions are increasingly the norm.