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Rat strains

Strains and stocks of rats most widely used in biomedical research are listed in the table below. This is based on a PubMed  search of the number of papers using the designated strain or stock for the years 2001-2005. Note that inbred strains were used on only 11.9% of occasions, with the vast majority of work being done using outbred  Sprague-Dawley or Wistar rats. Only 12 inbred rat strains have a PubMed MeSH  heading.

The most popular rat inbred strains are listed in  descending order of the number of citations. Thus, the most widely  used strain was F344, accounting for 32.1% of occasions on which an inbred  strain was used, next being LEW at 22.5% and so on.

A list of inbred strains and their characteristics is  maintained on the Jackson Laboratory web site.

There has been significant under-investment in inbred rat strains over a period of many years. A lot is known about F344, but relatively little about all the other  strains. The Rat Phenome project being run by a Japanese consortium is characterising many isogenic rat strains for a wide range of physiological, biochemical and morphological  parameters.

Stock/strain
Number of papers
MESH
% All rats
Sprague-Dawley* 49,477 Yes

40.9

–

Wistar* 41,929 Yes

34.7

–

Long-Evans* 13,467 Yes

11.1

–

Mutants 1,601 Yes

1.3

–

Inbred strains 14,353

11.9

Total

* Outbred stocks

120,827
–
100.0
–
Inbred strains only
–
–
–
-% Inbred rats
F344 4,611 Yes

3.8

32.1

LEW 3,227 Yes

2.7

22.5

SHR 2,086 Yes

1.7

14.5

WKY 1,821 Yes

1.5

12.7

BN 989 Yes

0.8

6.9

Dahl SS and SR 318 Yes

0.3

2.2

WF 309 Yes

0.3

2.2

ACI 224 Yes

0.2

1.6

BB 209 Yes

0.2

1.5

OLETF 171 Yes

0.1

1.2

WAG 95 No

0.1

0.7

BUF 90 Yes

0.1

0.6

PVG 79 No

0.1

0.6

LEC 66 Yes

0.1

0.5

OM 16 No

0.0

0.1

COP 15 No

0.0

0.1

BDIX 12 No

0.0

0.1

BDII 8 No

0.0

0.1

BH 7 No

0.0

0.0

Total inbred strains
14,353
–
11.9
100.0
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