Abstract
It has been reported that in Mini rats, rats of transgenic Jcl: Wistar-TgN (ARGHGEN) 1Nts strain, the expression of rat growth hormone (GH) gene was suppressed by the presence of an antisense transgene, resulting in lowered plasma GH levels compared with nontransgenic Wistar rats. GH is thought to have an important role in bone growth, but bone changes of Mini rats have not been reported. In the present study, we examined the femurs of both male Mini rats and male Wistar rats at different ages, i.e. 8 and 22 weeks of age, and compared them between both rat strains. As a result, Mini rats showed smaller sizes of the femur with low mineral densities histologically characterized by the metaphyseal and diaphyseal bone be a possible animal model for osteopenia.
