Strain Detail: DDY mice

The ddY (nbio007) is an outbred strain, and has been maintained as a closed colony. The mice show good reproductive performance and superior growth. In Japan, this strain, along with ICR strain, has been widely used in trials for drug efficacy and various fields of researches, such as pharmacological, phamacokinetic, and toxicological studies. The ddY strain is derived from a mouse colony at the Institute of Infectious Diseases of Tokyo University (Denken; presently, the Institute of Medical Sciences of Tokyo University), which had been introduced from Germany from 1910's to 1920's, and had established as a strain at the National Institute of Health (Yoken, presently, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases). The strain name, ddY, stands for the capital letters of Deutschland (= Germany), Denken, and Yoken.

The DDY strain has been established as an inbred strain from the ddY colony at Yoken. (Note that the inbred strain DDY is spelled with all uppercases; on the other hand, first two ds are lowercases in the name of outbred strain ddY). From the ddY strain, some disease model mice like HIGA mice (IgA nephritis model) had been developed.