Dataset Information

Mice lacking galectin-3 (Lgals3) function have decreased home cage movement.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Galectins are a large family of proteins evolved to recognize specific carbohydrate moieties. Given the importance of pattern recognition processes for multiple biological tasks, including CNS development and immune recognition, we examined the home cage behavioral phenotype of mice lacking galectin-3 (Lgals3) function. Using a sophisticated monitoring apparatus capable of examining feeding, drinking, and movement at millisecond temporal and 0.5 cm spatial resolutions, we observed daily behavioral patterns from 10 wildtype male C57BL/6J and 10 Lgals3 constitutive knockout (Lgals3-/-; both cohorts aged 2-3 months) mice over 17 consecutive days. We performed a second behavioral assessment of this cohort at age 6-7 months. RESULTS:At both ages, Lgals3-/- mice demonstrated less movement compared to wildtype controls. Both forward locomotion and movement-in-place behaviors were decreased in Lgals3-/- mice, due to decreased bout numbers, initiation rates, and durations. We additionally noted perturbation of behavioral circadian rhythms in Lgals3-/- mice, with mice at both ages demonstrating greater variability in day-to-day performance of feeding, drinking, and movement (as assessed by Lomb-Scargle analysis) compared to wildtype. CONCLUSION:Carbohydrate recognition tasks performed by Lgals3 may be required for appropriate development of CNS structures involved in the generation and control of locomotor behavior.

SUBMITTER: Chaudoin TR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5930520 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mice lacking galectin-3 (Lgals3) function have decreased home cage movement.

Chaudoin Tammy R TR Bonasera Stephen J SJ

BMC neuroscience 20180502 1

<h4>Background</h4>Galectins are a large family of proteins evolved to recognize specific carbohydrate moieties. Given the importance of pattern recognition processes for multiple biological tasks, including CNS development and immune recognition, we examined the home cage behavioral phenotype of mice lacking galectin-3 (Lgals3) function. Using a sophisticated monitoring apparatus capable of examining feeding, drinking, and movement at millisecond temporal and 0.5 cm spatial resolutions, we obse ...[more]

PMID: 29716523

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Project description:For ethical and legal reasons it is necessary to assess the severity of procedures in animal experimentation. To estimate the degree of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm, objective methods that provide gradebale parameters need to be tested and validated for various models. In this context, automated home-cage monitoring becomes more important as a contactless, objective, continuous and non-invasive method. The aim of this study was to examine a recently developed large scale automated home-cage monitoring system (Digital Ventilated Cage, DVC®) with regard to the applicability and added value for severity assessment in a frequently used acute colitis mouse model. Acute colitis was induced in female C57BL/6J mice by varying doses of DSS (1.5 and 2.5%), matched controls received water only (0%). Besides DVC® activity monitoring and nest scoring, model specific parameters like body weight, clinical colitis score, and intestinal histo-pathology were used. In a second approach, we questioned whether DVC® can be used to detect an influence of different handling methods on the behavior of mice. Therefore, we compared activity patterns of mice that underwent tunnel vs. tail handling for routine animal care procedures. In DSS treated mice, disease specific parameters confirmed induction of a graded colitis. In line with this, DVC® revealed reduced activity in these animals. Furthermore, the system displayed stress-related activity changes due to the restraining procedures necessary in DSS-treatment groups. However, no significant differences between tunnel vs. tail handling procedures were detected. For further analysis of the data, a binary classifier was applied to categorize two severity levels (burdened vs. not burdened) based on activity and body weight. In all DSS-treatment groups data points were allocated to the burdened level, in contrast to a handling group. The fraction of "burdened" animals reflected well the course of colitis development. In conclusion, automated home-cage monitoring by DVC® enabled severity assessment in a DSS-induced colitis model equally well as gold standard clinical parameters. In addition, it revealed changes in activity patterns due to routine handling procedures applied in experimental model work. This indicates that large scale home-cage monitoring can be integrated into routine severity assessment in biomedical research.

Dataset Information

Mice lacking galectin-3 (Lgals3) function have decreased home cage movement.

Publications

Mice lacking galectin-3 (Lgals3) function have decreased home cage movement.

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