Biomedical subjects

Melloni N Cook

Publications and source records attributed to Melloni N Cook.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

The Collaborative Cross, a community resource for the genetic analysis of complex traits.

The goal of the Complex Trait Consortium is to promote the development of resources that can be used to understand, treat and ultimately prevent pervasive human diseases. Existing and proposed mouse resources that are optimized to study the actions of isolated genetic loci on a fixed background are less effective for studying intact polygenic networks and interactions among genes, environments, pathogens and other factors. The Collaborative Cross will provide a common reference panel specifically designed for the integrative analysis of complex systems and will change the way we approach human health and disease.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Anxiety in the elevated zero-maze is augmented in mice after repeated daily exposure.

We recently tested three inbred mouse strains (C57BL/6J, DBA/2J, C3H/HeJ) and two F1 hybrids (B6C3F1/J, C3D2F1/J) in an elevated zero-maze for 3 consecutive days. As measured by the latency to enter an open quadrant and percentage of time spent in the open, anxiety increased over the three trials. Furthermore, we observed that some strains used visual cues to avoid the open arms of the zero-maze on the initial exposure, while other strains may have used other sensory cues. These results suggest that strains differentially use or retain information, gathered from the initial exposure, to avoid the open quadrants on subsequent exposure to the maze. Moreover, this repeated trial test may more accurately reflect anxiety in strains that are visually impaired.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Behavioral differences among 129 substrains: implications for knockout and transgenic mice.

Most knockout (KO) mice are produced with embryonic stem cells derived from a 129 strain. Because most KO strains are backcrossed to B6 yet retain a portion of their genome from 129, especially around the ablated target locus, phenotypes previously attributed to the ablated locus may be due to passenger 129 genes. Thus, the authors decided to test several 129 substrains for their behavioral characteristics. Seven 129 substrains were put through a battery of tasks to determine their behavioral profiles. Differences were found in anxiety-related behaviors in the zero-maze, habituation to the open field, and cued fear conditioning. All strains successfully performed the rotorod task. The behavioral differences observed may have important implications for the interpretation of data and show divergence of behavioral performance in these 129 substrains.

Animals↗