How stra(i)nge are your controls? A comparative analysis of metabolic phenotypes in commonly used C57BL/6 substrains.

ABSTRACT: In recent years, insufficiently characterised controls have been a contributing factor to irreproducibility in biomedical research including neuroscience and metabolism. There is now a growing awareness of phenotypic differences between the C57BL/6 substrains which are commonly used as control animals. We here investigated baseline metabolic characteristics such as glucose regulation, fasted serum insulin levels and hepatic insulin signalling in five different C57BL/6 substrains (N, J, JOla, JRcc) of both sexes, obtained from two commercial vendors, Charles River Laboratories (Crl) and Envigo (Env). Our results indicate systematic and tissue-specific differences between substrains, affected by both vendor and sex, in all parameters investigated, and not necessarily mediated by the presence

SUBMITTER: Sil A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10395817 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature