Abstract
ABSTRACTFuture prospects continue to be strong for research using the rat as a model organism. New technology has enabled the proliferation of many new transgenic and knockout rat strains, the genomes of more than 40 rat strains have been sequenced, publications using the rat as a model continue to be produced at a steady rate, and discoveries of disease-associated genes and mechanisms from rat experiments abound, frequently with conservation of function between rats and humans. However, advances in genome technology have led to increasing insights into human disease directly from human genetic studies, pulling more and more researchers into the human genetics arena and placing funding for model organisms and their databases under threat. This, therefore, is a pivotal time for rat-based biomedical research – a timely moment to review progress and prospects – providing the inspiration for a new Special Collection focused on the impact of the model on translational science, launched in this issue of Disease Models & Mechanisms. What disease areas are most appropriate for research using rats? Why should the rat be favoured over other model organisms, and should the present levels of funding be continued? Which approaches should we expect to yield biologically and medically useful insights in the coming years? These are key issues that are addressed in the original Research Articles and reviews published in this Special Collection, and in this introductory Editorial. These exemplar articles serve as a landmark for the present status quo after a decade of major advances using the rat model and could help to guide the direction of rat research in the coming decade.
Highlights
Putting the ‘rat’ in laboratory The rat is one of the premier models for studies of physiology, pharmacology, toxicology and neurobehaviour, reflected by an immense literature heritage
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, major funds provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the European Union (EU) drove the sequencing of the first rat genome and, supported by the EU consortia EURATools and EURATRANS, the development of genome tools and databases led to a host of gene discoveries, many of which were translated to human disease (Aitman et al, 2008)
Concluding remarks As demonstrated by the research and reviews published in this issue, and the hugely positive response to our ‘call for papers’, with submissions coming in from excellent groups around the world, the rat model continues to be a leading model for studies of physiology, pharmacology, toxicology and neuroscience
Summary
Putting the ‘rat’ in laboratory The rat is one of the premier models for studies of physiology, pharmacology, toxicology and neurobehaviour, reflected by an immense literature heritage. High-profile research groups across the world and strong ongoing programmes for generating rat knockouts (NIH GERRC and EU ELABORATE) take advantage of the genomeediting tools and technologies in place to use the rat model as a springboard for giving insights into human disease (Zhao et al, 2015; Fernandez-Duenas et al, 2015; Wang et al, 2016).
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