How does one select species/strain for toxicity testing? - (Jun/30/2012 )

Hi, this is just a general question for toxicologists but I was just wondering how one goes about selecting which species to perform testing on for any toxicity endpoints (developmental/reproductive effects, chronic toxicity, sensitization, etc.).

Why would someone select a mice over a rat (what are the big differences between the two)? And why pick a specific strain of mice (eg. CD-1 mice vs BALB/c mice).

Anyways, if anyone has any good discussion on this material that would be great.

Thanks.

It depends on your the activity of your reagent

David Cui on Tue Jul 10 10:09:57 2012 said:

Thats a bit "short".

It depends on a lot of factors: for example, is it something that will dissolve in water? Would you need to test this with fish (drugs need to be tested for this, using trout).
It depends on where it works => need to do an eye test? Or not?
It depends on what your intentions are: human drug, animal drug, microbial drug?

and about differences in mouses: this is often for certain, specific, immunological reactions (certain deficits in mouses might be needed) etc...