BALB/c is an

albino Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and reddish pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albinos. Varied use and interpretation of ...

, laboratory-bred strain of the

house mouse The house mouse (''Mus musculus'') is a small mammal of the rodent family Muridae, characteristically having a pointed snout, large rounded ears, and a long and almost hairless tail. It is one of the most abundant species of the genus '' Mus''. A ...

from which a number of common substrains are derived. Now over 200

generation A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and b ...

s from New York in 1920, BALB/c mice are distributed globally, and are among the most widely used

inbred strain Inbred strains (also called inbred lines, or rarely for animals linear animals) are individuals of a particular species which are nearly identical to each other in genotype due to long inbreeding. A strain is generally defined to be inbred once it ...

s used in

animal experimentation Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of animals, as model organisms, in experiments that seek answers to scientific and medical questions. This approach can be contrasted ...

History

The founding animals of the strain were obtained by Halsey J. Bagg of Memorial Hospital, New York, from a mouse dealer in

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

in 1913. The name BALB is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of "Bagg" and "Albino." From 1920, the progeny of the original colony were systematically

inbred Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders an ...

, sibling to sibling, for 26 generations over 15 years. During this time, the colony passed through the care of a number of scientists, including C.C. Little and E.C. MacDowell at the

Carnegie Institution of Washington The Carnegie Institution for Science, also known as Carnegie Science and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is an organization established to fund and perform scientific research in the United States. This institution is headquartered in W ...

and H.J. Muller at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

.Potter M. History of the BALB/c family, pp. 1–5. In: The BALB/c Mouse: Genetics and Immunology, ''Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology'', Vol. 122. Springer-Verlag, NY. 1985. By 1935 the animals were in the possession of Muller's student,

George Davis Snell George Davis Snell NAS (December 19, 1903 – June 6, 1996) was an American mouse geneticist and basic transplant immunologist. Work George Snell shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Baruj Benacerraf and Jean Dausse ...

, who moved them to The

Jackson Laboratory The Jackson Laboratory (often abbreviated as JAX) is an independent, non-profit biomedical research institution which was founded by Clarence Cook Little in 1929. It employs over 3,000 employees in Bar Harbor, Maine; Sacramento, California; F ...

. This stock provided the basis of all the BALB/c substrains that are now in use around the world. Snell provided some animals from this stock to the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

(NIH) to maintain. In 1961 D. W. Bailey used some of these to generate a substrain at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...

. In 1974, now 136 generations from the original breeding pair, these animals were returned to The Jackson Laboratory and were named ''BALB/cByJ''. On 16 November 2005, The Jackson Laboratory reported this substrain had reached its 235th generation. Snell also provided a colleague, J. Paul Scott, with some BALB/c breeding stock in 1938 or 1939. When a fire destroyed the main Jackson Laboratory buildings in 1947, all of Snell's original breeding stock perished, but Scott's mice were in a different building and survived. Scott donated stock back, at generation 41, to repopulate the colony. The progeny of these are now termed ''BALB/cJ'' and, as of 14 December 2006, were 221 generations from the founding stock. Other less popular substrains, such as ''BALB/cWt'', are maintained at the Jackson Laboratory, while the ''BALB/cN'' substrain is maintained by the NIH.

Characteristics

BALB/c mice are useful for research into both cancer and immunology. According to Michael Festing's ''Inbred Strains of Mice'', BALB/c substrains are "particularly well known for the production of

plasmacytoma Plasmacytoma is a plasma cell dyscrasia in which a plasma cell tumour grows within soft tissue or within the axial skeleton. The International Myeloma Working Group lists three types: Plasma cell dyscrasia#Solitary plasmacytoma, solitary plasma ...

s on injection with

mineral oil Mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a mineral source, particularly a distillate of petroleum, as distinct from usually edible vegetable oils. The name 'mineral oil' by itself is imprecise, ...

," an important process for the production of

monoclonal antibodies A monoclonal antibody (mAb, more rarely called moAb) is an antibody produced from a Lineage (evolution), cell lineage made by cloning a unique white blood cell. All subsequent antibodies derived this way trace back to a unique parent cell. Mon ...

. They are also reported as having a "low mammary tumour incidence", but do develop other types of cancers in later life, most commonly reticular neoplasms, lung tumours, and renal tumours. Most substrains have a "long reproductive life-span", are noted for displaying high levels of anxiety and for being relatively resistant to diet-induced

atherosclerosis Atherosclerosis is a pattern of the disease arteriosclerosis, characterized by development of abnormalities called lesions in walls of arteries. This is a chronic inflammatory disease involving many different cell types and is driven by eleva ...

, making them a useful model for cardiovascular research. There are noted differences between different BALB/c substrains, though these are thought to be due to

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...

rather than genetic contamination.Hilgers J., van Nie R., Ivanyi D., Hilkens J., Michalides R., de Moes J., Poort-Keesom R., Kroezen V., von Deimling O., Kominami R., and Holmes R. (1985) Genetic differences in BALB/c sublines. ''Curr. Top. Microbiol. Immunol.'' 122, 19-30. For example, male BALB/c mice are aggressive and will fight other males if housed together. However, the ''BALB/Lac'' substrain is much more docile.Southwick C. H. and Clark L. H. (1966) Aggressive behaviour and exploratory activity in fourteen mouse strains. ''Am. Zool''. 6, 559. The ''BALB/cWt'' is also unusual in that 3% of progeny display true

hermaphroditism A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic. The individuals of many ...

.Eicher E. M., Beamer W. G., Washburn L. L., and Whitten W. K. (1980) A cytogenetic investigation of inherited true hermaphroditism in BALB/cWt mice. ''Cytogenet. Cell Genet.'' 28, 104-115., doi:10.1159/000131518, The BALB/cJ mice have a medium lifespan of about 17 months for males and 20 months for females, and the body weight at 9 weeks after birth is about for males and for females.

References

External links

Jackson Laboratory's mouse strains

Taconic Biosciences' BALB/c model

Balb/c mice – Horizon Discovery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balb C Animals bred for albinism on a large scale Laboratory mouse strains

History

Characteristics

See also

References

External links