"Are you using him as a guinea pig"... A familiar joke that illustrates the status of the mouse as the "chief creature of the laboratory".
With so many animals, why do you have to choose mice as experimental animals?
First: high genetic similarity with humans.
Experiments are done by humans, and most experiments are designed to better help people, so to get accurate results, it is obviously necessary to choose an animal that is genetically close to humans. In all experimental animals, the genetic similarity between mice and humans is as high as 85%, and the base pairs on the mouse chromosomes are also very close to the base pairs on the human chromosomes.
Second: huge numbers and strong reproductive ability.
When it comes to high genetic similarity to humans, no animal can compare with chimpanzees in primates because it has a genetic similarity of 98.8% to humans. Obviously, if you use chimpanzees as experimental animals, the error will be even smaller. However, this is unrealistic, because looking at the entire planet, the number of chimpanzees is only more than 30,000.
Mice are different, not only in number, but also have strong reproductive ability. It takes only 1-2 months for mice to be able to reproduce from birth, and the gestation period is only about 20 days on average, and a female mouse can give birth to 4-7 litters and a litter of 8-15 cubs a year. This ability to reproduce is unmatched by other mammals.
Third: the particularity of inbreeding
Mice are inbred breeding organisms, and the genetic similarity of individuals participating in the experiment is as high as 98.6%, so that the error of experimental results can be minimized.
After more than 100 years of guinea pig experiments, scientists have discovered the greatest value in mice -
Mouse serum, known as liquid gold.
What is Mouse Serum?
Serum refers to the yellow transparent liquid separated from fibrin in the plasma after blood clotting.
▲▲Used in pharmaceutical raw materials.
▲▲Used as a raw material for high-grade cosmetics
▲▲Laboratory cell culture solution
▲▲Epidemic vaccine reagents
▲▲Anti-cancer pharmaceuticals
▲▲Newly developed laboratory reagents for food, medicine, and cosmetics.
▲▲Animal immunization, serum lgG preparation.
▲▲Pathohistochemical occlusion, ELSA and other immune experiments in the use of occlusion and protective agents.
▲▲Cell in vitro culture related experiments.
On June 27, Zhao Zeyu, chairman of Lizhi Enterprise, drove 1,500 kilometers back and forth, lasting 18 hours, to visit the Nanning Guinea Pig Base in Guangxi Province and investigate the physical project of the guinea pig.
Through a one-day base inspection, farmer research, research and development of core personnel meeting, Chairman Zhao and his party expressed great interest in the mouse entity project, the current post-epidemic era, very optimistic about the development prospects of the industry, the company will further do more detailed industry investigation and business planning, is committed to creating the "rat unicorn" biotechnology enterprise industry chain.
Follow-up development, stay tuned~