Washington
State University
Institutional
Animal Care and Use Committee
Rodent
Colony Health Monitoring Guidelines [VS-002]
Sentinel
Programs
Two
objectives:
1.
Rapidly detect an infectious disease outbreak within existing colonies
2.
Evaluate the health status of animals from non-commercial vendors/suppliers
Recommended
surveillance: Surveillance with rodent sentinels is recommended
for all long-term rodent colonies with rats, mice, wild mice, hamsters,
guinea pigs and gerbils and is mandatory in SPF vivariums. Short-term
rodent colonies may be exempt from surveillance only if they meet
the following criteria:
1. The colony will only be in existence for 6 weeks or less
2. All of the animals from the original colony will be eliminated
and the room completely emptied and sanitized before any new animals
are placed
3. Animals originate from an OCV approved SPF colony or vendor
4. Animals from the untested colony will not share laboratory space
or equipment with animals from long-term colonies
Selection
of sentinel animal: There are some clear advantages to
selecting certain lines, stocks or hybrids. Out bred stocks
are cheaper & more robust immune responses. Inbred strains
are expensive & have disease predilections that limit their
life spans. Hybrids depend on parental strain characteristics
and are more expensive. Immunodeficient mice (such as SCID or nu/nu
including heterozygote immunodeficient mice) should not be used
as sentinel animals.
Extra
animals from in-house programs commonly used. Generally females
are selected in order to avoid housing aggressive males.
Adult rodents are used to be sure no maternal antibodies are present
in sentinels, which could confound results.
Age
& Sex: Sentinel
rodents should be at least 8 weeks of age when placed in the room.
Sentinels should be maintained in same sex groups. Female littermates
are recommended over males due to decreased aggressiveness and fighting.
The sex of the sentinel animals must also be considered when housed
in rooms where hormonal influences may affect research objectives.
Page
2
Approved
by IACUC: May 15, 2002 Last up-dated: July 29,
2004
|
