Basic Knowledge for Beginners to Aim at the Appropriate Animal Experiment

Abstract

In order to assure reproducible animal experiments, the experiments must be performed by appropriate methods using defined laboratory animals. Russell and Burch proposed the term “dramatype” as the result of the effects of proximate environmental factors, e.g. food, housing condition and microbiota, on the phenotype in their 1959 book “The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique”. Therefore, the dramatype must be uniform to achieve reproducible animal experiments and animals having such uniform dramatypes are defined as laboratory animals. While, they also developed the three Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) principle for ethical use of animals in animal experiments. The 3Rs was stated in Law for the Humane Treatment and Management of Animals in 2005. In this manuscript, I described basic knowledge pertaining to genetic control, environmental control, microbe control and the appropriate animal experiment for beginners.