Super Mouse Can Run For Almost Six Hours
Look, there on the treadmill, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... super mouse!
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University say they have bred a new kind of "mighty mouse." Officially known as PEPCK-Cmus mice, they can run for three miles and for up to six hours before they tire. They also live up to a year longer, eat 60 percent more -- and don't gain any weight -- are very aggressive and are sexually active far longer than regular mice in a control group.
If you want to see just how amazing these creatures are, check out this video of the mice running.
I talked with Prof. Richard Hanson at Case Western, who was the senior author of the article on the mice that appeared in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He told me the discovery was total "serendipity." The original research aimed to look at an enzyme involved in the production of glucose, or sugar, as a source of energy in the liver and kidneys. Dr. Hanson said the researchers "over expressed" (or really souped up) the role of the enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase - or PEPCK-C for short - in muscle tissue to see what would happen to the muscle.
The result was the super mice.
As for the future of the research, Dr. Hanson told me he doesn't see the research being used as a performance-enhancer for humans. 'It's unethical and inappropriate," he said.
Instead, he sees the discovery of the mice's new abilities heading in three directions: 1) looking at the possible link between exercise and cancer, building on previous studies showing exercise may reduce cancer; 2) looking at the role of calorie-reduction because "it may not be the calories you eat as (much as) what you do with them"; 3) looking at the possible link between the muscles and the brain.
'It's unexpected and interesting," he told me.
4:27 PM ET | 11- 2-2007 | permalink
