Essential 10

8. Experimental animals Provide further relevant information on the provenance of animals, health/immune status, genetic modification status, genotype, and any previous procedures. explanation

8a Provide species-appropriate details of the animals used, including species, strain and substrain, sex, age or developmental stage, and, if relevant, weight.
8b Provide further relevant information on the provenance of animals, health/immune status, genetic modification status, genotype, and any previous procedures.
Explanation
Examples

The animals’ provenance, their health or immune status and their history of previous testing or procedures, can influence their physiology and behaviour as well as their response to treatments, and thus impact on study outcomes. For example, animals of the same strain, but from different sources, or animals obtained from the same source but at different times, may be genetically different [1]. The immune or microbiological status of the animals can also influence welfare, experimental variability and scientific outcomes [2-4].

Report the health status of all animals used in the study, and any previous procedures the animals have undergone. For example, if animals are specific pathogen free (SPF), list the pathogens that they were declared free of. If health status is unknown or was not tested, explicitly state this.

For genetically modified animals, describe the genetic modification status (e.g. knockout, overexpression), genotype (e.g. homozygous, heterozygous), manipulated gene(s), genetic methods and technologies used to generate the animals, how the genetic modification was confirmed, and details of animals used as controls (e.g. littermate controls [5]).

Reporting the correct nomenclature is crucial to understanding the data and ensuring that the research is discoverable and replicable [6-8]. Useful resources for reporting nomenclature for different species include:

 

References

  1. Festing MF and Altman DG (2002). Guidelines for the design and statistical analysis of experiments using laboratory animals. ILAR journal. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12391400
  2. Mahler Convenor M, Berard M, Feinstein R, Gallagher A, Illgen-Wilcke B, Pritchett-Corning K and Raspa M (2014). FELASA recommendations for the health monitoring of mouse, rat, hamster, guinea pig and rabbit colonies in breeding and experimental units. Lab Anim. doi: 10.1177/0023677213516312
  3. Baker DG (1998). Natural Pathogens of Laboratory Mice, Rats, and Rabbits and Their Effects on Research. Clinical Microbiology Reviews. doi: 10.1128/cmr.11.2.231
  4. Velazquez EM, Nguyen H, Heasley KT, Saechao CH, Gil LM, Rogers AWL, Miller BM, Rolston MR, Lopez CA, Litvak Y, Liou MJ, Faber F, Bronner DN, Tiffany CR, Byndloss MX, Byndloss AJ and Baumler AJ (2019). Endogenous Enterobacteriaceae underlie variation in susceptibility to Salmonella infection. Nat Microbiol. doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0407-8
  5. Holmdahl R and Malissen B (2012). The need for littermate controls. European journal of immunology. doi: 10.1002/eji.201142048
  6. Mallapaty S (2018). In the name of reproducibility. Lab Animal. doi: 10.1038/s41684-018-0095-7
  7. Sundberg JP and Schofield PN (2010). Commentary: Mouse Genetic Nomenclature:Standardization of Strain, Gene, and Protein Symbols. Veterinary Pathology. doi: 10.1177/0300985810374837
  8. Montoliu L and Whitelaw CBA (2011). Using standard nomenclature to adequately name transgenes, knockout gene alleles and any mutation associated to a genetically modified mouse strain. Transgenic Research. doi: 10.1007/s11248-010-9428-z