ABSTRACT
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Brother-sister matings of mice for 20 or more generations results in the creation of inbred strains.1 As discussed in detail elsewhere in this handbook, the longer this breeding strategy continues the higher the degree of genetic homology within the strain. The Jackson Laboratory and other repositories maintain strains that have been inbred for hundreds of generations now. A combination of genetic polymorphisms or real mutations that already existed in the parental stocks become fixed over time in the new inbred strain as two recessive alleles that by themselves or in combination with another or possibly many such genes results in spontaneous background-specific diseases.2 This can also be the result of mutations that occur spontaneously in the colony over time. The result is that each inbred strain has its own “disease profile”3 and in many ways can be compared to an individual outbred person or domestic animal, or an isolated population, such as a breed of dogs, that is prone to developing certain types of unique diseases.
