hi Kamal,

what we noticed in our lab was that the female mice were more tolerant to treatment regimes. For example they tolerated FGFR1, Src or MEK inhibitors better than male mice and had lesser toxic side effects. However, I personally used male mice for my research  and treated them with VGEFR / EGFR inhibitors... I configured the dosage and schedule in such a way that they were well tolerated by the male mice with minimum adverse side effects. From my experience, I dont think that it is absolutely mandatory to use female mice but depends on the type of therapy you are going to use.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Thanks @Sampurna for your help. I also want to know that is it necessary to use athymic mice for the studies? Cant we use female mice as such (not athymic)

the reason athymic mice are used in in-vivo cancer studies is because these mice lack thymus glands. hence they dont produce T cells. Therefore they dont reject tumor cells transplanted into them from other species like human. So, if you are planning to implant cells for your study, athymic mouse model is recommended. for eg. we are using female athymic mice in our lab for breast cancer study and male athymic mice for lung cancer. However,for immune response studies athymic mice might not be the best choice (since they lack T cells). 

What kind of study are you going to conduct?

I want to induce apoptosis in cancer cell to induce cell death. I want in vivo mice for this type of studies. So, according to you i should use athymic mice only?

yes, I would recommend that. To induce apoptosis in cancer cells, you need to develop tumors in xenografts. Athymic mice are ideal for developing tumors since they are immune deficient.