WKY

Genotype:

Pigmentation genes:aa BB cc hh PP RR

Mhc: RT1^lv?(RT1.A^lB/D^lC^lv?)

Erythrocyte antigens: RT2 ^a RT8 ^b

Lymphocyte antigens: RT6 ^b RT7 ^a

Inbr. Gen.: At Ztm (1998), F50. Origin: N, 1971, from outbred Wistar stock obtained from Kyoto University, School of Medicine (3), to Han in F21, to Ztm in 1994.

Note: Inbred as normotensive control strain for SHR (5; however, there is some controversy about the validity of such use, see 7).Several breeding nuclei of this strain have been distributed before F20, resulting in the emergence of a number of substrains (5) with two major groups expressing different markers (4).

Reproduction: While other substrains show only poor to moderate reproductive performance WKY/Ztm have an excellent reproductive performance with 2.05 young weaned/female/week and average litter size of 8,17.

Characteristics: Some demonstrate heritable biventricular cardiac hypertrophy, providing a model of volume-load hypertrophy (6). Belledonne et al. (1) showed that WKY/Tac rats are sensitive to sodium chloride-induced hypertension and have abnormal acid and ammonium excretion. Genetic marker profile described by Bender et al. (1994) (2).

References:

1 Belledonne, M., J. M. Preuss, and H. G. Preuss. 1979. Acid excretion in young and adult Wistar Kyoto and spontaneously hypertensive rats. Experientia 35: 1594–1595.

2 Bender, K., P. Balogh, M.F. Bertrand, M. den Bieman, O. van Deimling, S. Eghtessadi, G.A. Gutman, H. J. Hedrich, S.V. Kluge, K. Matsumoto, D.H. Moralejo, M. Nagel, A. Portal, C.-M. Prokop, R.T. Seibert and L.F.M. van Zutphen. 1994. Genetic characterization of inbred strains of the rat (Rattus norvegicus). I. Exp. Anim. Sci. 36: 151-166.

3 Hansen, C. T., S. Potkay, W. T. Watson, and R. A. Whitney, Jr. 1982. NIH Rodents: 1980 Catalogue. NIH Publ. No. 83–606, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C.

4 Hedrich, H.J., K. Matsumoto, M. Adams, J. Yamada and M. Kreimeyer. 1990. In Genetic Monitoring of inbred strains of rats. H.J. Hedrich (ed.). G. Fischer, Stuttgart.500 - 521.

5 Kurtz, T. W. and R. C. Morris, Jr. 1987. Biological variability in Wistar-Kyoto rats. Implications for research with the spontaneously hypertensive rat. Hypertension 10: 127–131.

6 Pfeffer, M. A., J. M. Pfeffer, F. G. Dunn, K. Nishiyama, M. Tsuchiya, and E. D. Frohlich. 1979. Natural biventricular hypertrophy in normotensive rats. I. Physical and hemodynamic characteristics. Am. J. Physiol. 236: H640–H643.

7 Rapp, J. P. 1987. Use and misuse of control strains for genetically hypertensive rats. Hypertension 10: 7–10.