Pub Date : 2025-11-26DOI: 10.1038/s41684-025-01656-8
Alexandra Le Bras
{"title":"COVID’s impact on sperm and offspring","authors":"Alexandra Le Bras","doi":"10.1038/s41684-025-01656-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41684-025-01656-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":17936,"journal":{"name":"Lab Animal","volume":"54 12","pages":"338-338"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145601237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-21DOI: 10.1038/s41684-025-01648-8
Sebastian Brachs, Morten Dall, Leonie-Kim Zimbalski, Yohan Santin, Christian Oeing, Knut Mai, Angelo Parini, Stefano Gaburro, Thomas Svava Nielsen
Blood glucose is one of the most essential parameters in metabolic research. Yet, accurate blood glucose monitoring in mouse models of diabetes is challenging owing to the substantial stress associated with the measurements and the variability in diabetes development among experimental mouse models. This variability requires frequent blood glucose measurements, which provide only intermittent data and may not accurately reflect continuous metabolic changes. Here, to address these issues, we have utilized the Tecniplast DVC system to monitor bedding moisture, enabling the detection of increased urination (polyuria) in mice, a primary symptom of diabetes. Polyuria is a hallmark of (undiagnosed/untreated) diabetes, and we revealed high correlations between bedding moisture and blood glucose during hyperglycemia. Thus, our developed algorithm enhances animal welfare by reducing the need for invasive blood glucose tests and enabling noninvasive, continuous assessment of hyperglycemia onset, progression and severity directly within the mice’s home cage. The continuous monitoring of polyuria allows the detailed analysis of temporal and circadian urination patterns and enables assessment of the efficacy of glucose-lowering interventions, which is critical in developing new pharmacological treatments. We propose that this innovative approach of a novel digital biomarker, the Urination Index, offers a substantial advance in the methodology for diabetes research in mouse models, improves animal welfare by reducing the need for invasive blood glucose tests and enhances the reliability of data and the quality of life for the animals involved. This Article presents a new digital biomarker of diabetes, the Urination Index, to monitor bedding moisture in mice. This noninvasive method reduces the need for invasive blood glucose tests, improving animal welfare and data reliability.
{"title":"Robust noninvasive detection of hyperglycemia in mouse models of metabolic dysregulation using the novel Urination Index biomarker","authors":"Sebastian Brachs, Morten Dall, Leonie-Kim Zimbalski, Yohan Santin, Christian Oeing, Knut Mai, Angelo Parini, Stefano Gaburro, Thomas Svava Nielsen","doi":"10.1038/s41684-025-01648-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41684-025-01648-8","url":null,"abstract":"Blood glucose is one of the most essential parameters in metabolic research. Yet, accurate blood glucose monitoring in mouse models of diabetes is challenging owing to the substantial stress associated with the measurements and the variability in diabetes development among experimental mouse models. This variability requires frequent blood glucose measurements, which provide only intermittent data and may not accurately reflect continuous metabolic changes. Here, to address these issues, we have utilized the Tecniplast DVC system to monitor bedding moisture, enabling the detection of increased urination (polyuria) in mice, a primary symptom of diabetes. Polyuria is a hallmark of (undiagnosed/untreated) diabetes, and we revealed high correlations between bedding moisture and blood glucose during hyperglycemia. Thus, our developed algorithm enhances animal welfare by reducing the need for invasive blood glucose tests and enabling noninvasive, continuous assessment of hyperglycemia onset, progression and severity directly within the mice’s home cage. The continuous monitoring of polyuria allows the detailed analysis of temporal and circadian urination patterns and enables assessment of the efficacy of glucose-lowering interventions, which is critical in developing new pharmacological treatments. We propose that this innovative approach of a novel digital biomarker, the Urination Index, offers a substantial advance in the methodology for diabetes research in mouse models, improves animal welfare by reducing the need for invasive blood glucose tests and enhances the reliability of data and the quality of life for the animals involved. This Article presents a new digital biomarker of diabetes, the Urination Index, to monitor bedding moisture in mice. This noninvasive method reduces the need for invasive blood glucose tests, improving animal welfare and data reliability.","PeriodicalId":17936,"journal":{"name":"Lab Animal","volume":"54 12","pages":"379-389"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41684-025-01648-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145559901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-19DOI: 10.1038/s41684-025-01635-z
Fatima-Azzahra Dwiri, Manon Audebert, Valentin Beaufils, Julie Bécam, Carole Brunaud, Jérôme Toutain, Adib Sanavi, Samuel Valable, Myriam Bernaudin, Omar Touzani, Elodie A. Pérès
Although radiotherapy improves the prognosis of patients with brain cancer, it induces cognitive deficits. Animal models have been used to address the underlying mechanisms of these radiation-induced deficits. Nonetheless, in most of the animal studies, whole-brain irradiation has been applied, deviating from the clinical practice, where the goal is to reduce the exposure of healthy brain tissue to radiation. Here we analyzed in rats the evolution of brain tissue injury and cognitive impairments induced by irradiation restricted to only one cerebral hemisphere and systematically compared these effects with those observed after whole-brain irradiation. Rats were divided into control, whole-brain-irradiated (WBI) and hemispheric-irradiated (HBI) groups. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging, behavioral tests and immunohistology were performed up to 6 months following the irradiation (3 × 10 Gy). Relative to WBI, more restricted irradiation did not induce significant locomotion impairment nor anxiety-like behavior; cognitive deficits and brain atrophy were also reduced after HBI compared with WBI. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed major alterations in the microstructure and the vasculature of brain tissue only in WBI rats. However, immunohistological analyses indicated that HBI induced persistent neuroinflammation confined to the irradiated hemisphere, which appeared more pronounced than that observed after WBI. Overall, the data highlight that restricted brain irradiation mitigates brain damage and induces less cognitive deficits compared with whole-brain irradiation. In the future, refining animal models with targeted cerebral irradiation will be essential for evaluating neuroprotective strategies. This study shows that restricting irradiation to one hemisphere of rat brains causes less cognitive impairment and brain damage, while improving clinical relevance, compared with the whole-brain irradiation model commonly used in radiotherapy research.
{"title":"Targeted versus whole-brain radiotherapy: systematic multiparametric and longitudinal investigations in the adult rat","authors":"Fatima-Azzahra Dwiri, Manon Audebert, Valentin Beaufils, Julie Bécam, Carole Brunaud, Jérôme Toutain, Adib Sanavi, Samuel Valable, Myriam Bernaudin, Omar Touzani, Elodie A. Pérès","doi":"10.1038/s41684-025-01635-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41684-025-01635-z","url":null,"abstract":"Although radiotherapy improves the prognosis of patients with brain cancer, it induces cognitive deficits. Animal models have been used to address the underlying mechanisms of these radiation-induced deficits. Nonetheless, in most of the animal studies, whole-brain irradiation has been applied, deviating from the clinical practice, where the goal is to reduce the exposure of healthy brain tissue to radiation. Here we analyzed in rats the evolution of brain tissue injury and cognitive impairments induced by irradiation restricted to only one cerebral hemisphere and systematically compared these effects with those observed after whole-brain irradiation. Rats were divided into control, whole-brain-irradiated (WBI) and hemispheric-irradiated (HBI) groups. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging, behavioral tests and immunohistology were performed up to 6 months following the irradiation (3 × 10 Gy). Relative to WBI, more restricted irradiation did not induce significant locomotion impairment nor anxiety-like behavior; cognitive deficits and brain atrophy were also reduced after HBI compared with WBI. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed major alterations in the microstructure and the vasculature of brain tissue only in WBI rats. However, immunohistological analyses indicated that HBI induced persistent neuroinflammation confined to the irradiated hemisphere, which appeared more pronounced than that observed after WBI. Overall, the data highlight that restricted brain irradiation mitigates brain damage and induces less cognitive deficits compared with whole-brain irradiation. In the future, refining animal models with targeted cerebral irradiation will be essential for evaluating neuroprotective strategies. This study shows that restricting irradiation to one hemisphere of rat brains causes less cognitive impairment and brain damage, while improving clinical relevance, compared with the whole-brain irradiation model commonly used in radiotherapy research.","PeriodicalId":17936,"journal":{"name":"Lab Animal","volume":"54 12","pages":"364-378"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145545303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-14DOI: 10.1038/s41684-025-01649-7
Brent Vasquez, Jeremy DeRicco, Bill J. Yates, Robert K. Cunningham
Animal protocol review is a lengthy process. We describe a repeatable approach using Generative Artificial Intelligence to improve the quality and speed of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee reviews, while considering issues of ethics, bias, robustness and trustworthiness. We implemented our system for 11 different common errors and found every actual problem (100% recall) in the animal protocols with 80–100% precision.
{"title":"Ethical, robust and accurate use of AI in animal research","authors":"Brent Vasquez, Jeremy DeRicco, Bill J. Yates, Robert K. Cunningham","doi":"10.1038/s41684-025-01649-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41684-025-01649-7","url":null,"abstract":"Animal protocol review is a lengthy process. We describe a repeatable approach using Generative Artificial Intelligence to improve the quality and speed of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee reviews, while considering issues of ethics, bias, robustness and trustworthiness. We implemented our system for 11 different common errors and found every actual problem (100% recall) in the animal protocols with 80–100% precision.","PeriodicalId":17936,"journal":{"name":"Lab Animal","volume":"54 12","pages":"335-337"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145509019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ante-mortem transcardiac perfusion of a fixative agent is generally recommended for quality preparations for cerebral histology, ensuring rapid and deep penetration in the tissue to preserve the most fragile brain structures. Despite being performed under anesthesia and with proper analgesia, this procedure is cumbersome for the experimenter and raises ethical questions. Recently, alternative protocols have been proposed based on prior animal euthanasia followed by an injection of a fixative agent into the circulation. These so-called post-mortem perfusion protocols should in theory ensure an equivalent quality of tissue fixation, without exposing live animals to a procedure. Before adopting this new method, it is necessary to validate that sample quality is equivalent, ensuring the validity of scientific results. Here we performed a parallel comparison of several protocols of tissue fixation by ante-mortem or post-mortem transcardiac perfusion and measured the impact on the maintenance of axonal structures, dendritic spines and mitochondrial morphology. Our results showed that histological parameters show variable sensitivity to perfusion conditions and fixatives used. For instance, axon fragmentation and altered mitochondrial morphology were observed in post-mortem transcardiac perfusion groups. We furthermore determined that the fixation condition had a variable effect on immunostaining, impacting the detected expression level or pattern. Our results serve as a guide to orient the experimenter in selecting the best condition for optimal tissue fixation, which minimizes animal suffering while guaranteeing the integrity of the biological results obtained. This study assesses various methods and timings for perfusion of fixatives to enhance brain histology, addressing ethical dilemmas associated with ante-mortem transcardiac perfusion and the lack of data on tissue quality using different techniques.
{"title":"Comparative study of pre- and post-mortem perfusion of fixative for the quality of neuronal tissue preparation","authors":"Géraldine Meyer-Dilhet, Salma Ellouze, Olivier Raineteau, Julien Courchet","doi":"10.1038/s41684-025-01633-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41684-025-01633-1","url":null,"abstract":"Ante-mortem transcardiac perfusion of a fixative agent is generally recommended for quality preparations for cerebral histology, ensuring rapid and deep penetration in the tissue to preserve the most fragile brain structures. Despite being performed under anesthesia and with proper analgesia, this procedure is cumbersome for the experimenter and raises ethical questions. Recently, alternative protocols have been proposed based on prior animal euthanasia followed by an injection of a fixative agent into the circulation. These so-called post-mortem perfusion protocols should in theory ensure an equivalent quality of tissue fixation, without exposing live animals to a procedure. Before adopting this new method, it is necessary to validate that sample quality is equivalent, ensuring the validity of scientific results. Here we performed a parallel comparison of several protocols of tissue fixation by ante-mortem or post-mortem transcardiac perfusion and measured the impact on the maintenance of axonal structures, dendritic spines and mitochondrial morphology. Our results showed that histological parameters show variable sensitivity to perfusion conditions and fixatives used. For instance, axon fragmentation and altered mitochondrial morphology were observed in post-mortem transcardiac perfusion groups. We furthermore determined that the fixation condition had a variable effect on immunostaining, impacting the detected expression level or pattern. Our results serve as a guide to orient the experimenter in selecting the best condition for optimal tissue fixation, which minimizes animal suffering while guaranteeing the integrity of the biological results obtained. This study assesses various methods and timings for perfusion of fixatives to enhance brain histology, addressing ethical dilemmas associated with ante-mortem transcardiac perfusion and the lack of data on tissue quality using different techniques.","PeriodicalId":17936,"journal":{"name":"Lab Animal","volume":"54 12","pages":"355-363"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41684-025-01633-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145427584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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