Will the day yet come when lab mice strike back?

Originally published 3 May 1993

Com­ing soon to a the­ater near you: “Attack of the Killer Trans­genic Microchip Mice.”

Look what sci­en­tists have done to the poor white mouse!

No crea­ture has giv­en more to the study of life or to the bet­ter­ment of human health than the white mouse. It has been poked, doped, inject­ed, infect­ed, bad­gered, shocked, and ine­bri­at­ed. It has been packed into over­crowd­ed cages, and forced to spend life­times alone with­out friends or mates. It has been exposed to every virus, bac­te­ria, car­cino­gen, and pol­lu­tant known to man. It has been spun in cen­trifuges, forced to run mazes, and blast­ed into space.

All of this the white mouse has endured for us — with hard­ly a squeak of protest.

And now, with Hitch­cock­ian fury, the white mouse takes revenge. Lis­ten! What’s that dis­tant squeak­ing sound? It’s…

Genet­ic researchers have cat­a­loged the many muta­tions of white mice, nat­ur­al and induced. These cat­a­logs are a kind of pre­lim­i­nary map of the genes. Mutant genes are named accord­ing to their effect on mouse behav­ior: agi­tans, dancer, dervish, fal­ter, fid­get, gyro, jerk­er, jit­tery, jolt­ing, jimpy, lurcher, piv­ot, quinky, quak­ing, quiv­er­ing, reel­er, stag­ger­er, shak­er, sham­bling, spin­ner, tum­bler, tot­ter­ing, tip­sy, tremu­lous, tee­ter­ing, twirler, unbal­anced, waltzer, vibra­tor, wad­dler, writher, whirler, wob­bler, weaver, and zig-zag.

Mice made spas­tic in the ser­vice of science.

And then there are the phys­i­cal mutants: brindled, crooked, curly-tailed, deaf, eye-blebs, eye­less, fused, kinky, loop-tailed, pal­lid, piebald, splotch, and tilt­ed head.

A hand­some young cou­ple, alone in a coun­try house. Big storm just over and elec­tric and tele­phone lines down. The mice! The teem­ing mice. Squeal­ing and skit­ter­ing across the lawn, swarm­ing onto the porch. A tremu­lous white mass, intent on…

The indig­ni­ty! No longer bred in saw­dust-filled cages in base­ment labs with a mod­icum of mousy deco­rum. Today, white mice are big busi­ness. Bred in vast stain­less-steel mouseries by the mil­lions. Patent­ed. Pack­aged in design­er box­es, like Pet Rocks or McDon­ald’s burgers.

Of course, you can still get your basic research mouse. By the gross. By the bar­rel. Your gener­ic dime-a-dozen squeak­ers, ready for any affront.

But you can also get your cus­tom-made spe­cials. Genet­i­cal­ly-engi­neered white mice. In recent years, mice with one or more “knocked out” (inac­ti­vat­ed) genes have become one of the hottest items in genet­ic stud­ies. They pro­vide an easy way to dis­cov­er the func­tion of indi­vid­ual genes. Genet­ic engi­neer­ing com­pa­nies are charg­ing as much as $150 per mouse. No knock­down pric­ing on these knocked-out mice. They are the Rolls-Royces of mousedom.

Genet­i­cal­ly-altered research mice are as fierce­ly appro­pri­at­ed for prof­it as any drug. A new and valu­able strain of mouse can send a com­pa­ny’s stock val­ue soar­ing. Even the license to breed a pair of patent­ed trans­genic mice can cost more than most labs are hap­py to pay. Roy­al­ties on rodents? You bet!

And then there’s the microchips. With so many dif­fer­ent kinds of mice in the lab only a com­put­er can keep track of who’s what. With spe­cial injec­tion guns you can now implant a microchip under a mouse’s skin. A spe­cial elec­tron­ic wand inter­ro­gates the chip, ascer­tains the rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion: a five-day old, brood-265B, Va var­itint-wad­dler with genet­ic link­ages to the piebald wobbler.

You get the idea. No more tat­toos, clipped ears, or leg bands. Every mouse with its own tiny sub­cu­ta­neous microchip tag.

A few years ago, a big non­prof­it mouse breed­ing facil­i­ty in Bar Har­bor, Maine, went up in flames. 400,000 mice died. Ordi­nary mice and valu­able spe­cial strains. More than 1,700 dif­fer­ent kinds of mice. A colos­sal blow to the med­ical research estab­lish­ment. If these mice had been peo­ple, or hors­es, or pup­pies, or even gup­pies — what a hue and cry! But mice? Nev­er mind that if it weren’t for white mice vast­ly more humans would like­ly die of can­cer, AIDS, and oth­er dis­eases. Nev­er mind that the white mouse has made a greater con­tri­bu­tion to the sum total of human knowl­edge than any oth­er non­hu­man creature.

A con­tri­bu­tion that goes unsung.

A freak wind demol­ish­es a research mouse breed­ing facil­i­ty in Maine. A mil­lion white mice escape their cages. They skit­ter and tum­ble across the coun­try­side, like an unstop­pable flow of twit­ter­ing molasses. In a coun­try farm­house a young cou­ple spend a week­end retreat. Wak­ened in the night by an unearth­ly squeak­ing. She goes to the window.

A mousy host, surg­ing against the side of the house. Claw­ing the clap­boards. Infil­trat­ing every hole and crevice. The whirlers. The eye-blebs. The kinky-waltzers. Advanc­ing in pla­toons and pha­lanx­es. Com­mu­ni­cat­ing by microchip. She screams. He slips his foot into a slip­per. A loop-tailed brindled dervish nips his toe. He screams.