COP

Inbr.F49 (Pcr 1988).

Colour: Black hooded.

Genet: a, h.

Origin: Curtiss 1921 at Columbia University Institute for Cancer Research.

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Characteristics

Lifespan and spontaneous disease

Mean life-span 20_0.2 months (but this figure is probably unreliable by modern standards). Spontaneous tumours of the thymus (Dunning and Curtis 1946, Dunning et al 1947)

Drugs and chemicals

Slow absorption of diethylstilboestrol leading to death from bladder calculi and papillomas (Dunning and Curtis 1946, Dunning et al 1947). Resistant to mammary tumour induction by 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene at doses which in strains OM, NSD, WF, LEW and BUF were highly susceptible. This is inherited as a dominant characteristic and appears to be a property of the mammary gland rather than a systemic effect (Isaacs 1988). Also highly resistant to the induction of mammary cancer following exposure to dust of 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)-anthracene powder applied directly to exposed mammary tissue, in contrast with WF (Takahashi et al, 1992). Subtractive hybridization using COP and WF mRNAs suggested that three genes (alpha-casein, lipoprotein lipase and an unidentified gene) were over-expressed in COP mammary gland. Northern analysis also suggested that beta and gamma-casein genes were also over-expressed in resistant WKY and COP, but not in susceptible F344, WF or SD strains (Hsu and Gould, 1993).

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Miscellaneous

Small pituitaries (Dunning et al 1947). Resistant to Cysticercus. Will grow transplantable tumours IRS 4337 and R3327 prostate adenocarcinoma, which is a model of human prostate cancer (Lubaroff et al 1977). Low antibody response to streptococcal group A carbohydrate; not linked to the MHC (Stankus and Leslie 1976). Resistant to the development of experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis (2/9) (Biesecker and Koffler 1988). Epitope specificities of collagen-induced arthritis studied by Cremer et al (1992)

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Biesecker G. and Koffler D. (1988) Resistance to experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis in genetically inbred rats. J. Immunol. 140, 3406-3410.

Cremer M. A., Terato K., Watson W. C., Griffiths M. M., Townes A. S., and Kang A. H. (1992) Collagen-induced arthritis in rats - examination of the epitope specificities of circulating and cartilage-bound antibodies produced by outbred and inbred rats using cyanogen bromide-derived peptides purified from heterologous and homologous type-II collagens. J. Immunol. 149, 1045-1053.

Dunning W. F. and Curtis M. R. (1946) The respective roles of longevity and genetic specificity in the occurrence of spontaneous tumors in the hybrids between two inbred lines of rats. Cancer Res. 6, 61-81.

Dunning W. F., Curtis M. R., and Segaloff A. (1947) Strain differences in response to diethylstilbestrol and the induction of mammary gland and bladder cancer in the rat. Cancer Res. 7, 511-521.

Hsu L. C. and Gould M. N. (1993) Cloning and characterization of overexpressed genes in the mammary- gland of rat strains carrying the mammary-carcinoma suppressor (Mcs) gene. Cancer Res. 53, 5766-5774.

Isaacs J. T. (1988) Inheritance of a genetic factor from the Copenhagen rat and the suppression of chemically induced mammary adenocarcinogenesis. Cancer Res. 48, 2204-2213.

Lubaroff D. M., Caufield L., Feldbush T. L., and Bonney W. W. (1977) R 3327 Adenocarcinoma of the Copenhagen rat as a model for the study of the immunologic aspects of prostate cancer. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 58, 1677-1689.

Stankus R. P. and Leslie G. A. (1976) Rat interstrain antibody response and crossidiotypic specificity. Immunogenet. 3, 65-73.

Takahashi H., Shoji T., Tsubura A., and Morii S. (1992) Neoplastic response to DMBA powder in mammary and interscapular tissues in Wistar Furth and Copenhagen female rats. International Journal of Oncology 1, 657-659.

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INBRED STRAINS OF RATS
Updated 9 Apr. 1998
Michael FW Festing
MRC Toxicology Unit, Hodgkin Building,
University of Leicester, UK