Examples of rodents that carry plague include the black rat (Rattus rattus) and the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus).
For comparison, we have few examples of rodent-derived viruses that are routinely passed from human to human.
For example, in a model of rodent status epilepticus, VPA markedly decreased neuronal damage in the hippocampal formation and improved neurological and memory functions [8].
For example, genes of rodents in many cases evolve substantially faster than the orthologous genes in primates (Bromham 2009, 2011).
Quite recently an example of a rodent cancelling its aging program and, moreover, solving the problem of cancer was described.
One example of how rodent primary cells can indeed misclassify hazards for humans is provided by this study, which shows mouse-derived primary cells to be more susceptible to AhR modulation than their human counterparts.
During early post-natal development, for example, the majority of rodent cardiac myocytes (Li et al, 1996) and an estimated 25 57% of human cardiac myocytes (Olivetti et al, 1996; Schmid & Pfitzer, 1985) become binucleated.
The relevance of these animal data to human cancer risk assessment has been questioned, and there are numerous examples of chemically-induced rodent neoplasms that are not considered applicable to human risk.
Examples of seasonally breeding rodents are listed in Table 1.
DHEA, for example, changes the color of rodent livers from pink to brown; when sixteen rats were fed DHEA for a year and a half, in a recent study at Northwestern University, fourteen developed liver cancer.
