Sex-Specific Peculiarities of Clinical Manifestations of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases in Cohoused Muc2 Knockout Mouse Siblings

Clinical symptoms of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are the key indicators of disease severity. A clear understanding of the variability in the manifestation of clinical symptoms and their timing is crucial for tracking the effects of treatments on the course of IBD. One of the effective IBD models is the Mucin 2 knockout (Muc2–/–) mouse strain, which exhibits clinical symptoms similar to those in humans. Here, we investigated the sex-specific manifestation of clinical symptoms in Muc2–/– mice to develop a protocol for evaluating the effects of drugs on disease progression and severity in this model. The study assessed the degree of rectal prolapse and rectal bleeding, the degree of emaciation (defined as the reduction of subcutaneous adipose tissue, evaluated visually), and stool consistency. It was found that clinical symptoms tend to manifest differently in a sex dependent manner. For instance, rectal prolapse with bleeding was observed predominantly in male Muc2–/– mice. These findings highlight the importance of including both males and females in research samples when using this model.