Scientists develop marathon mouse
US scientists have genetically engineered a 'marathon mouse' which can run twice as far as normal.
It could lead to drugs or gene treatments to improve the stamina of human athletes.
Scientists add an additional active copy of a normal mouse gene to create the supermouse.
Humans have the same gene, PPAR-delta, and two pharmaceutical companies are already developing drugs which boost its activity.
Most mice can run about 900 metres before exhaustion. But the marathon mice can run 1,800 metres before running out of steam, and keep it up for two and a half hours - an hour longer than normal mice.
"Records are broken on a fraction of a percent," said Ron Evans, the head researcher in the mouse experiment and a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory at The Salk Institute.
"A few percentage points is like a minute or two in a race. This was a big change: 100%."
The mice were also resistant to weight gain, even when fed a high-fat diet that caused obesity in other mice, according to the research published online in Public Library of Science Biology.
Ronald Hughes, from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in California, says the new drugs could one day be used by endurance athletes but were being developed for a different reason.
"The particular use would be for people who are overweight or who have problems in exercising," he said.
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