Genetic Monitoring of Inbred Strains of Mice

Inbred strains of mice and their different subtypes are an important tool in biomedical research to uncover pathological pathways and to develop new therapeutic strategies. Their standardized genetic background is a necessary prerequisite for valuable and reproducible results. During the last 100 years a huge number of inbred strains have been established and distributed around the world. It is a mistake to believe that the genetic background of an inbred strain is absolutely stable and that there will be no differences between substrains. This chapter describes factors compromising the genetic quality of inbred strains as well as possibilities for preventing the loss of this quality.