LARC Sentinel Program

 

 About

 

  • Sentinels are used as a monitoring tools to test each room for infectious agents that may impact the health of the rodents as well as impacting the experimental studies.
  • At cage change, one spoonful of bedding from every cage is collected into a separate cage which houses the sentinel mouse or rat.
  • LARC provides at least one sentinel for every rack.
  • Sentinel Mice Information: CD1 mice, 5-6 weeks of age, usually females
  • Sentinel Rat Information: Sprague Dawley rats, 5-6 weeks of age, usually females
  • LARC veterinary staff can vary the sex or strains of sentinel animals at any time.

 

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Testing and Parasitology

 

  • Quarterly serology, fecals and tape test samples are collected from sentinel animals and sent in to UCD for testing.
  • Sentinels are euthanized for blood collection for murine virus and Mycoplasma titers.
  • Fecal samples are collected for fecal floatation to test for pinworms.
  • Cellophane tape samples are collected from dorsum and perineum to screen for furmites and pinworms.
  • Sentinels are not routinely tested for Helicobacter spp., Pasteurella pneumotropica or other bacterial agents.

 

  • The serology is tested for the following:

     - RCV/SDAv (rat)

     - MHV (mouse)

     - Ectromelia (mouse)

     - Sendai (mouse, rat)

     - MPV (mouse)

     - RPV (rat)

     - MVM (mouse)

     - TMEV (mouse, rat)

     - Mycoplasma pulmonis (mouse, rat)

     - PVM (mouse, rat)

     - EDIM (mouse)

 

  • LARC veterinarians may alter the agents sentinels are tested for at their discretion 

 

For questions about LARC’s sentinel program for murine colony health contact: [email protected]