Case Study: Observing the Effects of Length of Exposure to MNV on Mice Colonies

Four groups of experimental mice are studied in this experiment following intentional exposure to murine norovirus (MNV). Two groups are exposed to the virus at different points in their lives, and the other two are not infected and studied alongside the other groups as controls. Past research has indicated that B and T immune cells are not essential to MNV resistance. Additionally, antibody production against MNV has shown to be slow as infection progresses. Thus, the expected results from the experiment are that the mice with longer infections of MNV will have larger quantities of IgG than those more recently infected with the virus. Immunological data gathered from these groups is compared to IgG counts from control mice, which are comprised of pathologically clean mice of the same strain as the sentinel mice infected with MNV and the same strain as the colony with innate exposure to MNV