Some like it hot: Mouse temperature preferences in laboratory housing

Gaskill, Brianna N.; Rohr, Stephanie A.; Pajor, E. A.; Lucas, Jeffrey R.; Garner, Joseph P.

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2008.10.002

Cited by 112 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The mouse engages numerous behavioral and physiological strategies to adapt to a cool T a . These strategies include activation of heat production, decreasing skin and tail blood flow, thermotaxis, nest building, and huddling, of which the latter two are often intertwined (13,14,19,20,42). One relevant question to ask is whether the cold stress of housing mice at 20°C imposes a significant limitation on modeling human disease, such as energy balance and immune function (8,25).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group housing and nest building only slightly ameliorate the cold stress of typical housing in female C57BL/6J mice

Maher

Barbash

Lynch

et al. 2015

American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comp

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Maher RL, Barbash SM, Lynch DV, Swoap SJ. Group housing and nest building only slightly ameliorate the cold stress of typical housing in female C57BL/6J mice. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 308: R1070 -R1079, 2015. First published April 15, 2015 doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00407.2014.-Huddling and nest building are two methods of behavioral thermoregulation used by mice under cold stress. In the laboratory, mice are typically housed at an ambient temperature (T a) of 20°C, well below the lower end of their thermoneutral zone. We tested the hypothesis that the thermoregulatory benefits of huddling and nest building at a T a of 20°C would ameliorate this cold stress compared with being singly housed at 20°C as assessed by heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), triiodothyronine (T3), brown adipose (BAT) expression of Elovl3 mRNA, and BAT lipid content. A series of experiments using C57BL/6J female mice exposed to 20°C in the presence or absence of nesting material and/or cage mates was used to test this hypothesis. Mice showed large differences in HR, BP, shivering, and core body temperature (T b) when comparing singly housed mice at 20°C and 30°C, but only a modest reduction in HR with the inclusion of cage mates or bedding. However, group housing and/or nesting at 20°C decreased T3 levels compared with singly housed mice at 20°C. Singly housed mice at 20°C had a 22-fold higher level of BAT Elovl3 mRNA expression and a significantly lower triacylglycerol (TAG) content of BAT compared with singly housed mice at 30°C. Group housing at 20°C led to blunted changes in both Elovl3 mRNA and TAG levels. These findings suggest that huddling and nest building have a limited effect to ameliorate the cold stress associated with housing at 20°C. ambient temperature; blood pressure; brown fat; nesting THE MOUSE (MUS MUSCULUS) IS an important model system for mammalian studies. Its genetic tractability with a short reproductive time, coupled with advances in the miniaturization of physiological tools, create an increased ease for the merging of physiological studies and "omic" studies. The ambient temperature (T a ) of animal housing facilities is within a standard range that, while comfortable for human caretakers, falls well below the mouse thermoneutral zone (TNZ), the range of T a s in which endotherms do not elevate their metabolic rate to maintain core body temperature (T b ) (19, 23). The T a at which metabolic rate begins to rise to offset heat loss (i.e., the lower critical temperature) is ϳ29 -30°C for mice (18). Housed at temperatures below this zone, mice are under cold stress (8).To elevate metabolic rate and minimize heat loss when exposed to cooler temperatures, endotherms engage one of many behavioral changes and/or several physiological adaptations, which vary across species and which are not mutually exclu-

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group housing and nest building only slightly ameliorate the cold stress of typical housing in female C57BL/6J mice

Maher

Barbash

Lynch

et al. 2015

American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comp

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Likewise, hypoxia groups were measured under the hypoxic conditions to which they were acclimated, and received mixed air of 12.5% oxygen and 87.5% nitrogen. Temperature of the chambers was maintained at 30°C, which is within the thermal neutral zone of Mus musculus (Gaskill et al, 2009;Gordon, 1985).…”

Section: Resting Metabolic Ratementioning

confidence: 99%

Chronic hypoxia stimulates an enhanced response to immune challenge without evidence of an energetic tradeoff

Baze

Hunter

Hayes

2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARYThere is broad interest in whether there is a tradeoff between energy metabolism and immune function, and how stress affects immune function. Under hypoxic stress, maximal aerobic metabolism is limited, and other aspects of energy metabolism of animals may be altered as well. Although acute hypoxia appears to enhance certain immune responses, the effects of chronic hypoxia on immune function are largely unstudied. We tested: (1) whether chronic hypoxia affects immune function and (2) whether hypoxia affects the metabolic cost of immune function. First, flow cytometry was used to monitor the peripheral blood immunophenotype of mice over the course of 36days of hypoxic exposure. Second, hypoxic and normoxic mice were subjected to an adaptive immune challenge via keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) or to an innate immune challenge via lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The resting metabolic rates of mice in all immune challenge treatments were also measured. Although hypoxia had little effect on the peripheral blood immunophenotype, hypoxic mice challenged with KLH or LPS had enhanced immunological responses in the form of higher antibody titers or increased TNF- production, respectively. Initially, mice exposed to hypoxia had lower metabolic rates, but this response was transitory and resting metabolic rates were normal by the end of the experiment. There was no effect of either immune challenge on resting metabolic rate, suggesting that mounting either the acute phase response or a humoral response is not as energetically expensive as previously thought. In addition, our results suggest that immune responses to chronic and acute hypoxia are concordant. Both forms of hypoxia appear to stimulate both innate and adaptive immune responses.

show abstract

“…Housing mice at, or just below, standard housing temperatures has been shown to decrease reproduction 8,9 , growth 10,11 , organ weight 10 , immune function 10 and increase metabolic rate [12][13][14] . Increasing laboratory ambient temperatures is not a solution because mice prefer different temperatures for different behaviors, times of day and between genders [15][16][17][18] . A mouse breeding cage is the best example of the disparity of thermal needs that can occur, even in one mouse cage.…”

Section: Temperature As An Example Of Environmental Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Not only do young mice prefer warmer temperatures, but so do sexually mature virgin adults. Adult mice actively prefer 30-32 °C 16,17 , especially when inactive and performing maintenance behaviors, such as grooming and eating. Thus, thermal environment appears to be extremely important during a mouse's inactive phase.…”

Section: Temperature As An Example Of Environmental Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stressed out: providing laboratory animals with behavioral control to reduce the physiological effects of stress

Gaskill

Garner

2017

Lab Anim

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hans Selye would have made a horrible laboratory animal technician. This budding young 1930s scientist accidently discovered stress physiology and the negative effect chronic exposure has on the body because of his extremely poor rat handling skills 1 . As a result, we know for a fact that husbandry affects the quality of animal models. Despite this knowledge, most labs continue to ignore stressful experiences in rodent models, often because of time or financial costs. Today's researchers and animal technicians of course receive more training and animal welfare oversight than Dr. Selye, but the slow rate of progress in minimizing general stress in the laboratory is disheartening. In addition to the obvious animal welfare ramifications of this lack of advancement, animal models in general show poor predictive validity in terms of translational outcomes in human clinical trials. Roughly 90% of compounds (for example, drugs or other therapeutics) that are 'successful' in animal trials fail in FDA human trials; the majority of these failures are a result of a lack of efficacy 2 . There are certainly many variables that contribute to this failure to translate, including reliance on measures that lack biological or psychological homology, translation of human clinical measures, or simple environmental effects 3 . In addition, we widely assume that strain differences and genetics are a large, if not the largest, influence on mouse behavior. However, in a retrospective study of influences on thermal nociception, strain only accounted for 27% of data variability 4 . On the other hand, environmental factors alone accounted for as much as 42% of data variability in the same study, and the identity of the experimenter actually had more effect on behavior than the genetics of the animal. Other examples highlight even more marked ratios, with enormous effects on experimental power and false discovery rates if not properly accounted for in data analysis 3,5 . Yet there is a substantial lack of research and funding available to determine how the laboratory environment affects animal physiology and behavior, particularly as it relates to characteristics of the human disease being modeled.Temperature as an example of environmental stress Many aspects of the laboratory environment are stressful to rodents and do not accurately reflect human physiology. An animal's environment can include both physiological and social stressors that require an animal to adapt to maintain allostatic balance. Thermal stress, for example, is a known stressor in the laboratory that affects temperature regulation and metabolism and results in poor modeling of human conditions in mouse models. Laboratory mice experience some degree of thermal stress under all recommended housing temperatures 6,7 (typically between 20-26 °C), but are prevented from adequately using many of their behavioral adaptations for thermoregulation and must therefore rely on thermogenic processes. At 23 °C, a mouse's metabolic rate is 60% higher than its metabolic rate at thermoneu...

show abstract

Some like it hot: Mouse temperature preferences in laboratory housing

Cited by 112 publications

References 18 publications

Group housing and nest building only slightly ameliorate the cold stress of typical housing in female C57BL/6J mice

Group housing and nest building only slightly ameliorate the cold stress of typical housing in female C57BL/6J mice

Chronic hypoxia stimulates an enhanced response to immune challenge without evidence of an energetic tradeoff

Stressed out: providing laboratory animals with behavioral control to reduce the physiological effects of stress

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About