Laboratories cause cancer in mice

Not quite, but Corante reports that standard lab conditions tend to induce thermal stress on lab mice, resulting in corrupt data when performing cancer studies:

Lab Mice Are Being Kept Too Cold, Apparently

Posted by Derek
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Now we have this, from PNAS. The authors, from the Roswell Park Institute and the EPA, say that standard rodent facility conditions are actually causing unintended chronic physiological stress:

We show here that fundamental aspects of antitumor immunity in mice are significantly influenced by ambient housing temperature. Standard housing temperature for laboratory mice in research facilities is mandated to be between 20–26°C; however, these subthermoneutral temperatures cause mild chronic cold stress, activating thermogenesis to maintain normal body temperature. When stress is alleviated by housing at thermoneutral ambient temperature (30–31°C), we observe a striking reduction in tumor formation, growth rate and metastasis. . .Overall, our data raise the hypothesis that suppression of antitumor immunity is an outcome of cold stress-induced thermo- genesis. Therefore, the common approach of studying immunity against tumors in mice housed only at standard room temperature may be limiting our understanding of the full potential of the antitumor immune response.