Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have successfully developed the world’s first mice incapable of synthesizing vitamin C, a nutrient essential for growth and healthy bones, teeth, gums, ligaments and blood vessels. The genetically engineered mice should become useful in determining vitamin C’s role in health and illness.

Dr Nobuyo Maeda, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the UNC-CH School of Medicine, and colleagues have previously generated mutant mice that showed high cholesterol and atherosclerotic lesions like those found in humans. Such mice are now widely used in research laboratories throughout the world.

Most animals, with the exception of humans, some of the higher apes and guinea pigs, can produce vitamin C on their own, therefore there is no need for consumption. As the mice that Dr Maeda generated are “humanized”, that means that experiments with them can combine the dietary factors that have long been possible with guinea pigs with the marvelous genetic experiments that are possible only with mice.

The most significant effects of insufficient vitamin C in the mice are abnormal changes in the wall of the aorta, which is the main artery channeling blood from the heart to the body. As the levels of vitamin C in the mice’s blood drop, small but significant increases in their total cholesterol can be measured along with reductions in high-density lipoproteins.

Comparable studies of vitamin C could not be done in guinea pigs because guinea pigs do not have the large collection of genetic mutations that interest medical scientists and are available in mice. Vitamin C is also central to the development of strong cross linking in binding proteins known as collagen in blood vessels and other tissues. Insufficient vitamin C in humans leads to scurvy and finally death.

Information provided is courtesy of and compiled by the Academy of Anti-aging Research staff, editors, and other reports.
 

Breeding the vitamin C-dependent mice with mice carrying defined genetic mutations will provide numerous opportunities for systematic studies of the role of antioxidants in health and disease. We look forward to on going research studies from these scientists.