Técnicas de descontaminação de linhagens de camundongos para obtenção de colônias livres de patógenos específicos

Abstract

The elimination of pathogenic and infectious agents is desirable from both an animal welfare and scientific perspective. Furthermore, subclinical infections can increase the variability of experiments, which can lead to an increase in the number of animals used. Decontamination of mice can be accomplished primarily by embryo transfer, hysterectomy, medicated diet, or by cross-fostering neonates to foster mothers. Therefore, this work aims to describe techniques used to decontaminate colonies and the criteria to evaluated their choice, in addition to highlighting the importance of maintaining certified and controlled sanitary animals. This work is a literature review based on the search, through the adoption of methodological criteria, of scientific articles available in the databases: PubMed, Scopos and ScienceDirect. For this, the descriptors selected through the tool were used: “Descriptors in Health Science - DeCS”, comprising the following terms: rederivation, colony decontamination, embryo transfer, assisted reproduction and cleaning colonies crossed with each other using the Boolean operator “AND”. After bibliographical research, the different mouse colony decontamination techniques were subdivided into modules with information, guidelines and methodologies, to be used in production, maintainance and experimental facilities for creation, maintenance and scientific research. Therefore, it is concluded that the success of a decontamination program depends on the choice of technique according to the infectious agents found and their viability, as well as the implementation of continuous and effective monitoring of agents in colonies and the environment.