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Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Mice can be housed in metabolic cages in order to answer specific scientific questions. The base of this cage system consists of a metal wire mesh in order to collect urine and feces of mice held therein. The food and water intake can also be assessed. The housing of mice in metaboli...

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Autores principales: Wittek, Laura, Touma, Chadi, Nitezki, Tina, Laeger, Thomas, Krämer, Stephanie, Raila, Jens
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10525209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37760266
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13182866
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author Wittek, Laura
Touma, Chadi
Nitezki, Tina
Laeger, Thomas
Krämer, Stephanie
Raila, Jens
author_facet Wittek, Laura
Touma, Chadi
Nitezki, Tina
Laeger, Thomas
Krämer, Stephanie
Raila, Jens
author_sort Wittek, Laura
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Mice can be housed in metabolic cages in order to answer specific scientific questions. The base of this cage system consists of a metal wire mesh in order to collect urine and feces of mice held therein. The food and water intake can also be assessed. The housing of mice in metabolic cages is considered highly stressful and cold stress is also often addressed because these social animals are single-housed and no further materials (e.g., nesting material) are provided to them. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to reduce stress during metabolic cage housing for mice. An innovative metabolic cage was constructed with integrated cage design improvements and was directly compared with a commercially available metabolic cage and a control cage. The following parameters were selected to evaluate the stress of laboratory mice: body weight, body composition, food intake, cage and body surface temperature, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression of uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1) in brown adipose tissue (BAT), fur score, and fecal corticosterone metabolites (CMs). Our results clearly show that metabolic cage housing elicits a stress response in mice, which is related to the cold housing conditions. The innovative metabolic cage represents a first attempt to reduce cold stress during metabolic cage housing. ABSTRACT: Housing in metabolic cages can induce a pronounced stress response. Metabolic cage systems imply housing mice on metal wire mesh for the collection of urine and feces in addition to monitoring food and water intake. Moreover, mice are single-housed, and no nesting, bedding, or enrichment material is provided, which is often argued to have a not negligible impact on animal welfare due to cold stress. We therefore attempted to reduce stress during metabolic cage housing for mice by comparing an innovative metabolic cage (IMC) with a commercially available metabolic cage from Tecniplast GmbH (TMC) and a control cage. Substantial refinement measures were incorporated into the IMC cage design. In the frame of a multifactorial approach for severity assessment, parameters such as body weight, body composition, food intake, cage and body surface temperature (thermal imaging), mRNA expression of uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1) in brown adipose tissue (BAT), fur score, and fecal corticosterone metabolites (CMs) were included. Female and male C57BL/6J mice were single-housed for 24 h in either conventional Macrolon cages (control), IMC, or TMC for two sessions. Body weight decreased less in the IMC (females—1st restraint: −6.94%; 2nd restraint: −6.89%; males—1st restraint: −8.08%; 2nd restraint: −5.82%) compared to the TMC (females—1st restraint: −13.2%; 2nd restraint: −15.0%; males—1st restraint: −13.1%; 2nd restraint: −14.9%) and the IMC possessed a higher cage temperature (females—1st restraint: 23.7 °C; 2nd restraint: 23.5 °C; males—1st restraint: 23.3 °C; 2nd restraint: 23.5 °C) compared with the TMC (females—1st restraint: 22.4 °C; 2nd restraint: 22.5 °C; males—1st restraint: 22.6 °C; 2nd restraint: 22.4 °C). The concentration of fecal corticosterone metabolites in the TMC (females—1st restraint: 1376 ng/g dry weight (DW); 2nd restraint: 2098 ng/g DW; males—1st restraint: 1030 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 1163 ng/g DW) was higher compared to control cage housing (females—1st restraint: 640 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 941 ng/g DW; males—1st restraint: 504 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 537 ng/g DW). Our results show the stress potential induced by metabolic cage restraint that is markedly influenced by the lower housing temperature. The IMC represents a first attempt to target cold stress reduction during metabolic cage application thereby producing more animal welfare friendlydata.
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spelling pubmed-105252092023-09-28 Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice Wittek, Laura Touma, Chadi Nitezki, Tina Laeger, Thomas Krämer, Stephanie Raila, Jens Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Mice can be housed in metabolic cages in order to answer specific scientific questions. The base of this cage system consists of a metal wire mesh in order to collect urine and feces of mice held therein. The food and water intake can also be assessed. The housing of mice in metabolic cages is considered highly stressful and cold stress is also often addressed because these social animals are single-housed and no further materials (e.g., nesting material) are provided to them. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to reduce stress during metabolic cage housing for mice. An innovative metabolic cage was constructed with integrated cage design improvements and was directly compared with a commercially available metabolic cage and a control cage. The following parameters were selected to evaluate the stress of laboratory mice: body weight, body composition, food intake, cage and body surface temperature, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression of uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1) in brown adipose tissue (BAT), fur score, and fecal corticosterone metabolites (CMs). Our results clearly show that metabolic cage housing elicits a stress response in mice, which is related to the cold housing conditions. The innovative metabolic cage represents a first attempt to reduce cold stress during metabolic cage housing. ABSTRACT: Housing in metabolic cages can induce a pronounced stress response. Metabolic cage systems imply housing mice on metal wire mesh for the collection of urine and feces in addition to monitoring food and water intake. Moreover, mice are single-housed, and no nesting, bedding, or enrichment material is provided, which is often argued to have a not negligible impact on animal welfare due to cold stress. We therefore attempted to reduce stress during metabolic cage housing for mice by comparing an innovative metabolic cage (IMC) with a commercially available metabolic cage from Tecniplast GmbH (TMC) and a control cage. Substantial refinement measures were incorporated into the IMC cage design. In the frame of a multifactorial approach for severity assessment, parameters such as body weight, body composition, food intake, cage and body surface temperature (thermal imaging), mRNA expression of uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1) in brown adipose tissue (BAT), fur score, and fecal corticosterone metabolites (CMs) were included. Female and male C57BL/6J mice were single-housed for 24 h in either conventional Macrolon cages (control), IMC, or TMC for two sessions. Body weight decreased less in the IMC (females—1st restraint: −6.94%; 2nd restraint: −6.89%; males—1st restraint: −8.08%; 2nd restraint: −5.82%) compared to the TMC (females—1st restraint: −13.2%; 2nd restraint: −15.0%; males—1st restraint: −13.1%; 2nd restraint: −14.9%) and the IMC possessed a higher cage temperature (females—1st restraint: 23.7 °C; 2nd restraint: 23.5 °C; males—1st restraint: 23.3 °C; 2nd restraint: 23.5 °C) compared with the TMC (females—1st restraint: 22.4 °C; 2nd restraint: 22.5 °C; males—1st restraint: 22.6 °C; 2nd restraint: 22.4 °C). The concentration of fecal corticosterone metabolites in the TMC (females—1st restraint: 1376 ng/g dry weight (DW); 2nd restraint: 2098 ng/g DW; males—1st restraint: 1030 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 1163 ng/g DW) was higher compared to control cage housing (females—1st restraint: 640 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 941 ng/g DW; males—1st restraint: 504 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 537 ng/g DW). Our results show the stress potential induced by metabolic cage restraint that is markedly influenced by the lower housing temperature. The IMC represents a first attempt to target cold stress reduction during metabolic cage application thereby producing more animal welfare friendlydata. MDPI 2023-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10525209/ /pubmed/37760266 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13182866 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wittek, Laura
Touma, Chadi
Nitezki, Tina
Laeger, Thomas
Krämer, Stephanie
Raila, Jens
Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice
title Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice
title_full Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice
title_fullStr Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice
title_full_unstemmed Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice
title_short Reduction in Cold Stress in an Innovative Metabolic Cage Housing System Increases Animal Welfare in Laboratory Mice
title_sort reduction in cold stress in an innovative metabolic cage housing system increases animal welfare in laboratory mice
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10525209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37760266
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13182866
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