Variability in isolate recovery rates from multiple and single breeds of outbred pigmented rabbits in an experimental model of Candida keratitis.
We evaluated variability of isolate recovery rates in an experimental model of Candida keratitis for both heterogeneous, pigmented, outbred rabbits and homogeneous Dutch-belted rabbits. Our purpose was to achieve more precise evaluation of topical antifungal agents in our model by substantially reducing the component of variance due to inter-rabbit differences. For the homogeneous Dutch-belted rabbits, the overall variance was reduced by a factor of 2.34 (p = 0.18) vis a vis the heterogenous outbred rabbits. The greatest reduction, a factor of 3.5, was achieved for the inter-rabbit component of variance. The upper bound for the hereditability measure was reduced from 29% to 18%. These data suggest that (1) researchers using animal models should perform a components of variance analysis to identify the factors influencing experimental precision, and (2) for our model, additional reduction in variability must come from refinement of experimental technique.
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D002177:Candidiasis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology; D003315:Cornea / Q000382:microbiology; D005838:Genotype; D007634:Keratitis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology; D011817:Rabbits