Establishing pathological markers in aging MIN mice with progressing intestinal cancer

A mutation in the Apc gene leads to early spontaneous development of intestinal cancer in mice. The ENU mutagenesis induced mutation was first characterized by Dr. Dove in Madison and the pathways and the pathological development has been under investigation since. Here we describe the establishment of non-terminal measures, which can be used to monitor the progression of the disease in aging animals. Typically, the severity of the disease is measured post euthanasia via histological evaluation of the affected intestinal tissues. A limitation of this analysis is the requirement of euthanasia (typically conducted around 84 days of age), which prevents long term studies or repeated evaluation of the same animal. We have previously presented potential beneficial measures to reduce the development of carcinomas in mutant animals, however, failed to show that any reduction actually could lead to an increase in lifespan / survival rate of the affected animals. Here we are presenting preliminary measures attempting to establish markers indicating the severity of the underlying cancer which can be measured repetitively in the same animal and allow to predict its pathological state prior to euthanasia