BB rat

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The BB rat is an inbred strain of the color rat ( Rattus norvegicus forma domestica), which is characterized by a high incidence of spontaneously occurring diabetes mellitus and is therefore used in experimental diabetes research as an animal model for insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes . The establishment of the BB rat as an inbred strain goes back to an outbred colony of Wistar rats in the Canadian company Bio-Breeding Laboratories based in Ottawa , in which the occurrence of hyperglycaemia and ketoacidosis was frequently observed in 1974 . Extensive studies have shown that diabetes mellitus in the BB rat is autoimmune and therefore aetiologically similar to insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes in humans , which occurs particularly in adolescence .

So is the emergence of diabetes in the BB rat as well as the type 1 diabetes before the onset of the disease by as insulitis called inflammatory infiltration of cells of the immune system in the islets of Langerhans of the pancreas (pancreatic) and an accompanying Destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells. In addition, genes in the main histocompatibility complex are considered to be the most important genetic risk markers of the disease in both the BB rat and in humans. The occurrence of autoantibodies against antigens from the beta cells, which is characteristic of human type 1 diabetes, has also been demonstrated in the BB rat. The onset of the disease, which occurs in the BB rat in old age from 60 to 120 days, is characterized by weight loss and polyuria , as in humans . Without insulin treatment , hyperglycaemia leads to life-threatening ketoacidosis in BB rats as well. The incidence of diabetes differs between different colonies and generations within the same colony, but is typically over 90 percent of all animals.

The BB rat has found widespread use in experimental diabetes research, in particular on immunological and genetic issues as well as testing new approaches to therapy and prevention of the disease. Along with the NOD mouse, it is the dominant model animal in research on type 1 diabetes and, in particular, has largely supplanted animal models based on diabetes mellitus chemically induced by administration of streptozocin or alloxan . A striking difference between humans and NOD mice, however, is a lack of lymphocytes in the blood of BB rats, known as lymphopenia .

literature

  • John P. Mordes, David V. Serreze, Dale L. Greiner, Aldo A. Rossini: Rat Models on Type 1 Diabetes. In: Derek LeRoith, Simeon I. Taylor, Jerrold M. Olefsky: Diabetes mellitus: A Fundamental and Clinical Text. Third edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia 2004, ISBN 0-78-174097-5 , pp. 596-598
  • Ulla Nøhr Dalberg, Claus Haase, Lars Hornum, Helle Markholst: The BB Rat. In: George Eisenbarth : Immunoendocrinology: Scientific and Clinical Aspects. Springer, New York and London 2010, ISBN 1-60-327477-4 , pp. 183-198