Reaching your goals in obesity studies can be a challenge or a success depending on the reliability of your research models. TheLep^obmutation was discovered in 1949 in an outbred mouse stock and was subsequently transferred to a C57BL/6 background. This model has since been well characterized as a model of obesity, exhibiting commonly published metabolic symptoms including hyperinsulinemia and hyperphagia.

Mutation backcrossed onto the C57BL/6J strain at The Jackson Laboratories, Bar Harbor, Maine, in the 1950’s. Acquired by the Laboratory Animals Centre, Carshalton, United Kingdom, in 1974. To Olac, United Kingdom, in 1978. To Harlan Laboratories, in 2001. Harlan became Envigo in 2015.