Clinical Chemistry of the Laboratory Mouse

The frontier of clinical chemistry in the mouse has advanced and expanded because of two major events such as, the increasing reliance on mice in biomedical research, and increasing availability of practical yet sophisticated techniques and instrumentations that have allowed for the detection of a wider variety of biomarkers of disease. The progression of these two events is partially driven by the increasing regulatory demands related to safety/toxicity assessment of novel drug development. The availability of inbred strains has led to major breakthroughs in cancer, biology, and immunology. In addition, outbred stocks continue to be utilized in a wide variety of studies but particularly in the fields of toxicology and pharmacology. The power of these models to elucidate the genetic basis of disease cannot be overemphasized. This provided complete nucleotide sequences for each genome allowing investigators to quickly develop the equivalent murine model for many of the inherited human diseases. Transgenic and knockout mice have helped clarify disease pathogenesis in virtually every area of medicine and often elucidated biochemical pathways, previously unknown, which are now subject to testing and quantification.