Cage enrichment with paper tissue, but not plastic tunnels, increases variability in mouse model of asthma

Environmental enrichment, besides having a great impact on animal welfare, can also be a potential variable in experimental research. Thus, we investigated whether enrichment of cages with paper tissues or plastic tunnels affects scientific outcome in the well-described mouse model of allergic asthm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Laboratory animals (London) Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 121 - 123
Main Authors:	Pasalic, I, Bosnjak, B, Ivetic Tkalcevic, V, Seveljevic Jaran, D, Javorscak, Z, Markovic, D, Hrvacic, B
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London, England SAGE Publications 01-04-2011
Subjects:	Administration, Intranasal aluminum sulfate Animal Husbandry - methods animal models animal welfare Animals asthma Asthma - immunology Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid - cytology Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid - immunology cages Disease Models, Animal Environment Design environmental enrichment Eosinophils - metabolism Interleukin-13 - analysis Interleukin-13 - metabolism Mice Mice, Inbred BALB C ovalbumin Ovalbumin - administration & dosage Ovalbumin - immunology Plastics pneumonia Pneumonia - immunology Reproducibility of Results environmental enrichment eosinophils interleukin 13 Airway inflammation mice
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Summary:	Environmental enrichment, besides having a great impact on animal welfare, can also be a potential variable in experimental research. Thus, we investigated whether enrichment of cages with paper tissues or plastic tunnels affects scientific outcome in the well-described mouse model of allergic asthma. BALB/cJ mice were introduced to paper tissues as nesting material, transparent plastic tunnels serving as shelters or kept in non-enriched cages. Afterwards, mice were sensitized to chicken egg ovalbumin (OVA) precipitated in aluminium sulphate and then intranasally challenged with OVA to induce allergic lung inflammation. Mice housed in cages enriched with paper tissues, but not with plastic tunnels, had increased total cell number, eosinophil number and IL-13 concentration in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in comparison with the non-enriched control group. These results indicate that the effect of environmental enrichment on mice asthma models depends on the type of enrichment used. Therefore, it is important to consider the potential effects of any environmental enrichment on animal welfare and more importantly, on research results in order to standardize and obtain more accurate data from rodent studies.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0023-6772 1758-1117
DOI:	10.1258/la.2010.010109