Health Monitoring of Laboratory Rodent Colonies—Talking about (R)evolution

Abstract

The health monitoring of laboratory rodents is essential for ensuring animal health and standardization in biomedical research. Progress in housing, gnotobiotic derivation, and hygienic monitoring programs led to enormous improvement of the microbiological quality of laboratory animals. While traditional health monitoring and pathogen detection methods still serve as powerful tools for the diagnostics of common animal diseases, molecular methods develop rapidly and not only improve test sensitivities but also allow high throughput analyses of various sample types. Concurrently, to the progress in pathogen detection and elimination, the research community becomes increasingly aware of the striking influence of microbiome compositions in laboratory animals, affecting disease phenotypes and the scientific value of research data. As repeated re-derivation cycles and strict barrier husbandry of laboratory rodents resulted in a limited diversity of the animals’ gut microbiome, future monitoring approaches will have to reform—aiming at enhancing the validity of animal experiments. This review will recapitulate common health monitoring concepts and, moreover, outline strategies and measures on coping with microbiome variation in order to increase reproducibility, replicability and generalizability.

Why serology just is not enough: Strategic parvovirus risk assessment using a novel qPCR assay

“…Latent parvovirus infections of laboratory mice have a huge impact on biomedical research data, which is why health monitoring strategies should involve comprehensive parvovirus diagnostics to reliably confirm the hygienic status of the colony. 2,4–6,17 Since infections with murine parvoviruses lead to inconsistent seroconversion rates, depending on the infected mouse strain and virus dose, the use of indirect virus detection methods requires very large sample sizes to successfully find specific antibodies in analysed blood sample material. 4,5 Furthermore, shedding in persistently infected animals often involves very low viral concentrations, which is why sensitivity of direct detection methods (usually PCR) has to be exceptionally high.…”

“…Cryopreserved two-cell embryos derived from parvovirus-positive B6;129S2- Stra6 tm1Nbg /Lzt and B6;129S2- Stra6™ 2 .1Nbg /Lzt donor mice 52 were imported from a collaborating research facility (Part B). As a means of hygienic rederivation, 8–12-week-old CD2F1 surrogate dams (BALB/cJHanZtm × DBA/2JHanZtm) obtained from the Central Animal Facility were used for embryo transfer, as described in detail by Dorsch et al.…”

“…Deeper knowledge about the hygienic status of laboratory animals directly contributes to the concept of the 6Rs, which besides animal welfare also take into account the scientific value of studies. 2,18 While viral contaminants such as Sendai virus or lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus are nowadays rare in mouse colonies due to broad rederivation strategies and strict barrier housing, parvoviruses still remain prevalent in animal facilities all over the world, 3,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25] leading to an increased risk of introducing parvovirus into a facility after unknowingly importing contaminated mouse stocks. 26 The underlying reasons for this relatively stable epidemiological situation include: i) environmental tenacity of infectious parvovirus, ii) relative difficulty to detect ongoing infections due to mouse strain-and virus-dose dependent seroconversion rates, iii) intermittent viral shedding and iv) the ability of parvoviruses to cause persistent infections despite the onset of immunity.…”

“…Systematic health monitoring is a key element in the husbandry of laboratory rodents as it not only ensures animal health but also enhances the validity of biomedical research. 1,2 Among all relevant pathogens, murine parvoviruses are certainly one of the most troubling agents, since maintaining virus-free mouse colonies is exceptionally challenging. 3–6 Up to 2018, in mice two parvoviruses have been identified, namely mouse parvovirus (MPV) and minute virus of mice (MVM), which can be further subdivided into distinctly related strains (MVMp, MVMi, MVMm, MVMc, MPV1, MPV2, MPV3, MPV4, MPV5).…”

“…Deeper knowledge about the hygienic status of laboratory animals directly contributes to the concept of the 6Rs, which besides animal welfare also take into account the scientific value of studies. 2,18…”