ABSTRACT
M. Festings and J. N. Staats summarized the history and salient characteristics of several rat strains. Among those listed were the Brown Norway (BN) and the Wistar-derived (WAG) strains. This chapter highlights these two strains are particularly, because they are the sources for the BN/Bi and WAG/Rij rats. Germ-free (GF) BN/Bi and WAG/Rij rats were maintained in case it might become necessary to start a new specific pathogen-free breeding colony. The number of GF rats produced provided a few animals for experiments; however, they were not maintained for life span or pathology studies. The BN strain, BN/Bi, was originally started by Silvers and Billingham in 1958 from a brown mutation obtained from King and Aptekman. They were obtained as conventional animals from Microbiological Associates Inc. in 1963. The WAG/Rij is a small white WAG rat. It was obtained from Glaxo Laboratories in 1953.
