Minimizing the variables of voiding spot assay for comparison between laboratories

PeerJ

article

Chuang Luo¹  Juan Liu¹  Jiali Yang¹  Xiang Xie¹  Weiqun Yu³  Huan Chen¹ 

[1] The School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southwest Medical University;Public Center of Experimental Technology, Model Animal and Human Disease Research of Luzhou Key Laboratory, Southwest Medical University;Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School;Nucleic Acid Medicine of Luzhou Key Laboratory, Southwest Medical University

关键词: Voiding spot assay;    Voiding pattern;    Lower urinary tract;    Bladder;    Filter paper;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.15420

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

The voiding spot assay (VSA) is increasingly being adopted as a standard method for assessing mouse urinary function. However, VSA outcomes are highly sensitive to housing environment and procedural parameters. Many variables exist among laboratories, including analytical software, type of daily housing cage, transportation, and the time of the day. Some of these variables, such as the time of VSA and analytical software, have been shown to result in inconsistency and incomparability of data. In this study, we evaluated whether the results of VSA can be compared across laboratories by minimizing these variables. We found that analytical tools between Fiji and MATLAB are in good agreement in the quantification of VSA parameters, especially primary voiding spot (PVS) parameters. Unexpectedly, we found that mice housed in different daily home cages did not alter voiding patterns in a standard VSA cage. Nonetheless, we still recommend acclimation when performing VSA in unfamiliar cages. Notably, mice are highly sensitive to transportation and the time in the morning versus afternoon, which can induce significant changes in voiding patterns. Therefore, a standardized period among laboratories and allowing 2–3 days of rest for mice acclimation after transportation are necessary for VSA. Finally, we performed VSA using identical procedural parameters in two laboratories from two geographical locations to compare the results of VSA and concluded that it is possible to generate limited comparable VSA data, such as PVS volume.

【 授权许可】

CC BY