About

• Sentinels are used as a monitoring tools to test each room for infectious agents that may impact the health of the rodents as well as impacting the experimental studies.
• At cage change, one spoonful of bedding from every cage is collected into a separate cage which houses the sentinel mouse or rat.
• LARC provides at least one sentinel for every rack.
• Sentinel Mice Information: CD1 mice, 5-6 weeks of age, usually females
• Sentinel Rat Information: Sprague Dawley rats, 5-6 weeks of age, usually females
• LARC veterinary staff can vary the sex or strains of sentinel animals at any time.

Testing and Parasitology

• Quarterly serology, fecal and pelt swab samples are collected from sentinel animals and sent to a diagnostic lab for parasitology testing.
• Sentinels are euthanized for blood collection for murine virus and Mycoplasma titers.
• PCR (fecal and pelt swabs) are collected to tested for furmite and pinworms.
• Sentinels are not routinely tested for Helicobacter spp., Pasteurella pneumotropica or other bacterial agents.

• The serology is tested for the following:

     - RCV/SDAv (rat)

     - MHV (mouse)

     - Ectromelia (mouse)

     - Sendai (mouse, rat)

     - MPV (mouse)

     - RPV (rat)

     - MVM (mouse)

     - TMEV (mouse, rat)

     - Mycoplasma pulmonis (mouse, rat)

     - PVM (mouse, rat)

     - EDIM (mouse)

• LARC veterinarians may alter the agents sentinels are tested for at their discretion 

For questions about LARC’s sentinel program for murine colony health contact: [email protected]