mouse model
A mouse model is a laboratory mouse used to study how genes work in a mammal much like ourselves. Because mice are mammals with the same major organs, a placenta, a similar immune system and roughly the same set of genes as humans, they are the closest practical stand-in for studying human biology and disease that genetics allows.
Mice can be bred into pure strains that are nearly genetically identical, so experiments are repeatable, and their genes can be precisely altered — deleted, replaced or tuned — to ask what each one does in a living body. By recreating a human disease mutation in a mouse, researchers can study how the disorder unfolds and test possible treatments before they reach people.
Mice are still not little humans: differences in lifespan, metabolism, immune details and body size mean some findings do not transfer, and a treatment that helps a mouse may not help a person. Used carefully and combined with other evidence, though, mouse models remain indispensable for connecting genes to mammalian physiology and medicine.
To study a human muscle-wasting disease, researchers introduce the matching mutation into a mouse and watch how the muscles weaken, giving a living system in which to trial therapies.
A mammal close enough to humans to model many of our diseases.
The mouse was one of the first mammals whose genes could be precisely engineered in embryonic stem cells, making it the standard mammal for testing what a specific gene does.