Changing Dosing Methods Means Fewer Mice Needed to Study Lung Infections

Rockville, Md. (September 21, 2023)—Researchers will need fewer mice to study lung infections thanks to improvements in dosing methods, according to a new study from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Changing how animals are anesthetized and infected with microbes allows scientists to study lung infections using smaller group sizes and without having to use invasive dosing methods. The study is published in the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology and has been chosen as an APSselect article for September.

“More precise dosing without surgery can help scientists answer important research questions faster, using fewer animals and causing less animal suffering.” —Simon Cleary, PhD

 Research using mouse models of lung infections is important for improving scientists’ understanding of how infections lead to lung diseases and for testing vaccines and drugs. When researchers use different anesthesia and dosing approaches in their experiments, the amount of dose that reaches the lungs and the extent of lung inflammation changes. Raising awareness of these effects to encourage harmonization of dosing methods between different groups of researchers in different laboratories has potential to improve reproducibility and reduce the number of failed experiments. 

In this study, researchers compared the effects of delivering microbes to lungs of mice through three different delivery methods: intranasal (through the nostrils), by oropharyngeal aspiration (placing doses into the back of the mouth) and intratracheal (into the windpipe). “Intratracheal dosing approaches have potential for more precise lung dosing relative to intranasal and oropharyngeal aspiration dosing,” the researchers wrote. 

“Optimized dosing methods allow researchers to complete mouse studies faster and at lower cost,” said Simon Cleary, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at UCSF and a lead author of the study. “Making preclinical studies more efficient in this way has potential to speed up the development of new and improved treatments for patients. Researchers switching to less invasive methods that mean fewer animals are required is also good news for mice.”

Read the full article, “Optimizing anesthesia and delivery approaches for dosing into lungs of mice.” It is highlighted as one of this month’s “best of the best” as part of the American Physiological Society’s APSselect program. Read all of this month’s selected research articles. 

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: To schedule an interview with a member of the research team, please contact APS Media Relations or call 301.634.7314. Find more research highlights in our Newsroom.

Physiology is a broad area of scientific inquiry that focuses on how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function in health and disease. The American Physiological Society connects a global, multidisciplinary community of more than 10,000 biomedical scientists and educators as part of its mission to advance scientific discovery, understand life and improve health. The Society drives collaboration and spotlights scientific discoveries through its 16 scholarly journals and programming that support researchers and educators in their work.