Biochemical polymorphisms in wild rats (Rattus norvegicus) captured in Oita city, Japan.

The investigation of biochemical markers in wild rats (Rattus norvegicus) is thought to be useful in the efficient establishment of inbred strains with a wide range of genetic variability of wild rats. In this study, 21 marker proteins were analyzed by electrophoresis in nine wild rats captured in Oita city. It was found that eleven marker samples in six animals were heterogeneous. We further found that the investigated wild rat population possessed the interesting polymorphisms of esterase-4 (ES-4) with high frequency, which are very rare in laboratory rats.