Hi everyone,
I want to know the logic behind selection of female mice to study the in vivo efficacy of standard antibiotics or newly isolated antimicrobial compounds other than their chromosome homogeneity.
Many reviewers ask this when somebody sends the manuscript for publication.
Hello!
Dear Manoj Jangra,
I think both Male & Female mice can be used in in vivo study. The fact is that the gander of mice should be same in both group such as in controlled group & also in treated group and that are either male or female.
Regards,
Tania
The answer is all about money. Adult female mice can be housed in groups. Adult Male mice has to housed separately.
But new NIH guidelines requires both sexes now (unless they changed this recently).
In the experimental pharmaceutical field, it is still popular to work with rats (previously dominated male, today both sexes are used) in order to be able to compare the results with older investigations (which as well involved rat experiments). In the past, drugs, including antibiotics, have been tested almost exclusively on (male) rats. Recently, more and more mice been used in pharmaceutical studies. Mouse have their dis/advantages. Rats have their dis/advantages. But today, both sexes should be tested (with few exceptions, like for instance, prostata cancer studies). In rats, in contrast to mice, there were hardly any problems when several males were kept together. Male mouse however, tend to fight against each other if kept together. So it is easier to keep female mouse together.
Seriously,as i mentioned before, both female and male subjects (irrelevant if mice or rats or monkies) should nowadays become involved.This include the gender based-pharmacology and toxicology. Certainly, the results have to be evaluated separately and in the next step will be a translation on a human organism (is it justifiable or not?). To your question: The potential benefits of female mice in antibiotic efficiency studies: lower costs relative to male mouse, possible prediction of antibiotic-associated musculopathies , which may be more severe in female organisms than in male, and a prediction of the teratogenic potential of the antibiotic (in vivo). This under experimental conditions estimated teratogenicity in female mouse has to be tested on other suitable animal models. Good luck
Drazen Margetic Thank you very much for such a detailed information. My doubts are clear now and I ll design my experiments accordingly.