Answer 1:
Here is a brief passage from the methods of
study which also used a hypercholesterolemic
mouse model. I would suggest doing a more
extensive literature search (through resources
such as pubmed, google scholar) before planning
any sort of treatment routine. I also must
strongly urge that you work closely with someone
who has extensive experience with animal
research - there are many safety, ethical, and
legal concerns to be aware of before getting
started.
Here is an example paper to get your search
started:
M.P. Taranto, M. Medici, G. Perdigon, A.P. Ruiz
Holgado, G.F. Valdez, Evidence for
Hypocholesterolemic Effect of Lactobacillus
reuteri in Hypercholesterolemic Mice, Journal of
Dairy Science, Volume 81, Issue 9, September
1998, Pages 2336-2340, ISSN 0022-0302,
10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(98)70123-7.
Mice and the Hypercholesterolemic Animal
Model
Swiss Albino mice weighing 25 g were obtained
from the randomly numbered closed colony kept at
CERELA. The mice were split into two groups.
Each experimental group consisted of 10 mice
housed in- dividually and maintained on a cycle
of 12 h of light and 12 h of dark.
As a preliminary treatment to produce hyper-
cholesterolemia, the treated mice were fed a
diet based on 10% ( w t / v o l ) sterile NDM
supplemented with 10% cream for 7 or 15
consecutive d. The control and the HC groups
received a solid conventional diet (rodent chow:
32% protein, 5% fat, 2% fiber, and 60% nitrogen-
free extract). The total fat content of the diet
was 17.6% for HC group and 6.7% for the control
group. After 1 and 2 wk of feeding, blood
samples of 10 mice per group were drawn from the
retroorbital venous plexus for determination of
serum total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL
cholesterol, and serum triglycerides. The
cholesterol and triglycerides concentrations
were determined enzymatically using an enzymatic
reagent kit (Sigma Chemical Co., St. Louis,
MO).
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Answer 2:
I don't think you're allowed to do that type
of research. Researchers need approval from
their university and the government to do animal
research of that type. Animals have rights.
I used to do research at UC Berkeley on
cholesterol-fed guinea pigs. We used guinea
pigs instead of mice or rats, because guinea
pigs get high blood cholesterol from dietary
cholesterol much more easily than rats. I'm
guessing mice respond about the same as rats.
So I hope you can find a new research
project, and I congratulate you on planning to
do a research project.
There's also Google Scholar -
scholar.google.com - where you can find
scientific articles. You might want to search
for something like : mice blood diet
cholesterol.
Here's the first article from that search -
you can click on : [pdf] from NIH.gov to see the
whole article. But don't try this at home!! ;-]
Massive xanthomatosis and atherosclerosis in
cholesterol-fed low density lipoprotein receptor-
negative mice.
[PDF] from nih.gov
S Ishibashi, JL Goldstein, MS Brown... - Journal
of Clinical ..., 1994 - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
... Mice with the indicated genotype (n = 6;
three males and three females) were fed either a
normal
chow diet (o) or a 1.25% cholesterol (*) diet
for 6 mo. Blood was obtained from nonfasted
animals,
the d < 1.215 g/ml lipoprotein fraction of
pooled plasma from each group was ...
Cited by 442 - Related articles - BL Direct -
All 14 versions.
Best wishes,
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Answer 3:
As with all animal experiments, you should
talk to your teacher about it. Is there another
way you can complete your project without having
to use mice? Can you do a study surveying your
friends and family about their diet and
correlate it with whatever you are trying to
study? It is likely whatever you are interested
in studying, can be approached without the use
of animals.
If you must use mice, you do not want to
cause the animals to suffer in your experiments.
You and your teacher should come up with a plan
for your mice. How many mice will you have?
Where will you put them? What will happen if the
mice get sick? This also means that you should
have an idea of what you are going to do with
the mice after the experiment. They should be
healthy enough to go to good homes. Scientists
that use animals in their experiments are
subject to very harsh review before they use
animals in their experiments and need to answer
questions such as these to even be able to
proceed. You should think about your experiment
carefully before using mice.
One way to induce hypercholesterolemia is to
supplement the normal rodent food with 10% cream
for 7-15 consecutive days (see Materials &
Methods for Taranto 1998). You'll want to look
at the rodent food to see what it's nutritional
content is as well. Follow the general feeding
procedures for the mouse as recommended by the
label on the rodent food.
Another study described the normal feed as
being 22.5% wheat flour, 60% roasted Bengal-gram
flour, 5% skimmed milk powder, 4% casein, 4%
refined groundnut oil, 4% salt mixture, and 0.5%
vitamin mixture (as recommended for mice). To
increase cholesterol, they added 2% cholesterol
and 1.5% sodium cholate (see Materials & Methods
for Dutta 2009).
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