Iohexol plasma clearance simplified by Dried Blood Spot (DBS) sampling to measure renal function in conscious mice

There is no simple method to measure glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in mice, which limits the use of mice in models of renal diseases. We aimed at simplifying the plasma clearance of iohexol in mice, using dried blood spot (DBS) sampling in order to reduce the amount of blood taken for analysis. GFR was measured simultaneously by a reference method in total blood—as described before—and tested method using DBS in fifteen male and six female C57BL/6J mice. Total blood extraction was 50 μL for the reference methods and 25μL for the tested methods, distributed in 5 samples. The agreement of GFR values between both methods was analyzed with the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC), total deviation index (TDI) and coverage probability (CP). The agreement between both methods was excellent, showing a TDI = 8.1%, which indicates that 90% of the GFR values obtained with DBS showed an error ranging from − 8 to + 8% of the reference method; a CCC of 0.996 (CI: 0.992), reflecting high precision and accuracy and a CP of 94 (CI: 83), indicating that 6% of the GFR values obtained with DBS had an error greater than 10% of the method in blood. So, both methods are interchangeable. DBS represent a major simplification of GFR measurement in mice. Also, DBS improves animal welfare by reducing the total blood required and refining the procedure.