About the Resource

The Mouse Mutant Resource (MMR) provides a comprehensive and secure resource of spontaneous mouse mutations. The mission of the MMR is to:

  • Develop new mutant mouse model systems for biomedical research
  • Maintain these mutant stocks as efficiently as possible
  • Preserve the stocks or their germplasm for the future
  • Distribute the stocks and information about them to the scientific community 

Spontaneous mutation characterization

Mice with new spontaneous mutations are genetically and pathologically characterized to evaluate their value for biomedical research. Each new mutation is characterized:

  • genetically by determining its mode of inheritance, its allelism with known mutations that produce similar phenotypes, and its chromosomal location.
  • phenotypically by observing their fertility, growth, viability, life span, and behavior and by defining their anatomical, histopathological, and physiological abnormalities.

History of the Mouse Mutant Resource

The Jackson Laboratory has a long tradition of studying and maintaining mutant mice. The first colonies of mutant mice were established by Drs. George Snell and Elizabeth Russell in the 1930s.

During the late 1940s, Dr. Margaret Dickie organized many of these mutant mice into a resource colony called the Mouse Mutant Stocks Center (MMSC). The MMSC was first funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1958, with Dr. Margaret Green as Director.

A second group of mutant strains was assembled into the Neurological Mutant Mouse Colony by Dr. Earl Green, then Director of the Lab. It subsequently grew to include non-neurological mutants, was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and was renamed the Mouse Mutant Gene Resource (MMGR) by Dr. Eva M. Eicher, who assumed responsibility for it in 1971.

In 1983 the MMSC and MMGR were consolidated into one functional unit, called the Mouse Mutant Resource (MMR), and Dr. Muriel T. Davisson was appointed Staff Supervisor. In 1993, Dr. Kenneth R. Johnson became Supervisor of the MMR, and in 1996 Dr. Leah Rae Donahue became MMR Colony Supervisor.