A BIOLOGICAL STUDY OF INBRED WEISER-MAPLE S GUINEA-PIGS - URINALYSIS,HEMATOLOGICAL AND BLOOD-CHEMICAL VALUES AND ORGAN WEIGHTS

Urinalysis, hematological and blood chemical examinations and measurem ent of organ weights were carried out for the purpose of collecting ba ckground data on Weiser-Maples (WM) which was established as an inbred strain of guinea pigs. The results were compared with those for the c ommercial guinea pigs, Std: Hartley (H). In addition, the measurement methods for urinary specific gravity and whether centrifugation of uri ne influences the results of urinalysis or not were examined. The spec ific gravity values calculated from the volume and weight of urine wer e highly correlated with those from the refraction rate, The results o f urinalysis of the supernatant of centrifuged urine were similar to t hose of urine not centrifuged, but the results suggested that the use of the supernatant provided a more accurate measurement of urine in gu inea pi,os. The positive rate for urinary protein was higher in the WM strain (38.9%) than in the H strain (0%). Although the WM strain show ed higher or lower values than the H strain in some items of hematolog ical and blood chemical examinations and organ weights, we could not r egard them as characteristic of the WM strain.