title: Measuring respiratory function in mice using unrestrained whole-body plethysmography.
abstract: Respiratory dysfunction is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world and the rates of mortality continue to rise. Quantitative assessment of lung function in rodent models is an important tool in the development of future therapies. Commonly used techniques for assessing respiratory function including invasive plethysmography and forced oscillation. While these techniques provide valuable information, data collection can be fraught with artefacts and experimental variability due to the need for anesthesia and/or invasive instrumentation of the animal. In contrast, unrestrained whole-body plethysmography (UWBP) offers a precise, non-invasive, quantitative way by which to analyze respiratory parameters. This technique avoids the use of anesthesia and restraints, which is common to traditional plethysmography techniques. This video will demonstrate the UWBP procedure including the equipment set up, calibration and lung function recording. It will explain how to analyze the collected data, as well as identify experimental outliers and artefacts that results from animal movement. The respiratory parameters obtained using this technique include tidal volume, minute volume, inspiratory duty cycle, inspiratory flow rate and the ratio of inspiration time to expiration time. UWBP does not rely on specialized skills and is inexpensive to perform. A key feature of UWBP, and most appealing to potential users, is the ability to perform repeated measures of lung function on the same animal.
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Monash Medical Centre; rebecca.lim@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research.
authors.forename: Marcus J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Zavou
authors.affiliation: Animal Resource Centre, Perth, Australia.
authors.forename: Phillipa-Louise
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Milton
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research.
authors.forename: Siow Teng
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research.
authors.forename: Jean L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Monash Medical Centre.
authors.forename: Hayley
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dickinson
authors.affiliation: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
authors.forename: Sean V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Monash Medical Centre.
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jenkin
authors.affiliation: The Ritchie Centre, Monash Institute of Medical Research; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Monash Medical Centre.
authors.forename: Euan M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Wallace
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010993:Plethysmography, Whole Body / Q000379:methods*; D012143:Respiratory Physiological Phenomena