4.1. Mice

In this study, all procedures used 13-month-old IL-I raKO mice of randomly mixed gender because there is no difference in the prevalence and severity of experimental AA amyloidosis in male and female mice [38]. Their use was approved by the Research Center of Global Agromedicine of Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, and adequate steps were taken to ensure that animals did not suffer unnecessarily at any stage of an experiment, whether acute or chronic. The physiologic features and genetic characteristics of IL-I raKO mice have already been described [38,62]. Three or four mice were housed in a single cage and they had free access to water and food (CE-2, CLEA, Tokyo, Japan). The animal experimentation was conducted according to the protocol reviewed and approved by (OUAVM) Animal Care and Use Committee (Permission No. 19-179: 7-10-2019).