The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research

Abstract

Reproducible science requires transparent reporting. The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) were originally developed in 2010 to improve the reporting of animal research. They consist of a checklist of information to include in publications describing in vivo experiments to enable others to scrutinise the work adequately, evaluate its methodological rigour, and reproduce the methods and results. Despite considerable levels of endorsement by funders and journals over the years, adherence to the guidelines has been inconsistent, and the anticipated improvements in the quality of reporting in animal research publications have not been achieved. Here, we introduce ARRIVE 2.0. The guidelines have been updated and information reorganised to facilitate their use in practice. We used a Delphi exercise to prioritise and divide the items of the guidelines into 2 sets, the "ARRIVE Essential 10," which constitutes the minimum requirement, and the "Recommended Set," which describes the research context. This division facilitates improved reporting of animal research by supporting a stepwise approach to implementation. This helps journal editors and reviewers verify that the most important items are being reported in manuscripts. We have also developed the accompanying Explanation and Elaboration document, which serves (1) to explain the rationale behind each item in the guidelines, (2) to clarify key concepts, and (3) to provide illustrative examples. We aim, through these changes, to help ensure that researchers, reviewers, and journal editors are better equipped to improve the rigour and transparency of the scientific process and thus reproducibility.

ARRIVE 2.0 and the British Journal of Pharmacology: Updated guidance for 2020

“…ARRIVE 2.0 together with an ‘Explanation and Elaboration’ document was loaded onto the NC3Rs website in July 2019 as a preprint (i.e., before peer review (Percie du Sert et al, 2019)), and is now published in full in PLOS Biology (Percie du Sert et al, 2020), with simultaneous publication in several international journals, including this issue of the BJP (Percie du Sert et al, 2020). In preparation for the publication of the new guidelines we conducted surveys assessing compliance to ARRIVE in the BJP over 4 years, the results of which can be seen in Table 1.…”

“…These amendments do not challenge the importance of either version of ARRIVE. On the contrary, we strongly recommend that all authors read ARRIVE 2.0 (Percie du Sert, Hurst, et al, 2020) and familiarise themselves with the complementary ‘ Explanation and Elaboration’ document (Percie du Sert et al, 2020).…”

Cetuximab-Mediated Protection from Hypoxia- Induced Cell Death: Implications for Therapy Sequence in Colorectal Cancer

“…Animal experiments were approved by the local authority (Regierungspräsidium, Darmstadt, Germany) and performed in accordance with the ARRIVE-guidelines and institutional guidelines [ 53 ]. Sample size was calculated using the resource equation approach (Sample Size Calculations (IACUC)) [ 54 , 55 ] For the generation of subcutaneous tumors, 4 × 10 6 tumor cells in 100 μL PBS were injected subcutaneously in the lower back of 6-week-old female athymic nude mice (Foxn1nu, Harlan, Indianapolis, IN, USA).…”

An Anglocentric History of Anaesthetics and Analgesics in the Refinement of Animal Experiments

“…The ARRIVE 2.0 guidelines were introduced in 2020 in an attempt to resolve poor reporting tendencies [ 75 ]. However, it had already (2018) been pointed out that the complete description of badly planned and managed experiments would not increase study reproducibility, refine the conditions for, nor reduce the number of animals wasted in such a study [ 76 ].…”