One of the things we do as veterinarians is try to maintain our rodent colonies free of pathogens and opportunists that can affect research. Most of us have a long list of viruses, parasites and bacteria (amongst others) that we routinely test for and exclude - but what about all the others? Do we automatically assume that it is not an infectious cause if all our tests are coming back negative? I guess you already know the answer from the way I asked the question, but which organisms should be top of our suspect list if we get asked about unexpected problems in a lab's research? Here are some actual scenarios for you to ponder...
1. I am having problems getting a phenotype with my experimental autoimmune encephalitis model - the mice are immunized against myelin and should mount an adaptive immune response against their own nervous system resulting in progressive or intermittent paralysis. However over the last few months we are not getting a response. It's the same animals, the same personnel, the same reagents - what's going on?
2. I have a mouse model investigating immune responses in our genetically engineered mouse model that has cloned T cells (limited action only to defined epitopes) - however the controls as well as the test animals are both reacting the same. Is it norovirus?
3. Help! I'm losing my mouse line ... it's a transgenic model I created and so far as I know there are no immune deficiencies. However I'm getting infertility, small litter sizes and unexpected deaths in young adult mice. Help!
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Best
Julie
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