news

Tecniplast UK are excited to share with you a new webinar titled "Discover the Thorough Impact of a Cage-Change Event on In-Cage Activity and Micro-Environmental Conditions in IVC Housed Mice" will be held at 16:00 BST on Monday 25 September 2023.

The webinar focuses on a recent significant paper Tecniplast published, addressing the topic of ammonia. During the webinar, we will introduce a novel procedure for detecting ammonia levels in cages while they are still within the DVC Rack.

This study examined the effects of cage change frequency on in-cage activity, animal health, and ammonia buildup in individually ventilated cages (IVCs) housing four C57BL/6 mice. The researchers found that bi-weekly cage changes led to a marked increase in activity, particularly during the first daytimes, with a gradual decrease until the next cage change. Female mice preferred to have the latrine in the front of the cage, while male mice allocated more activity to the latrine-free area of the cage floor. Ammonia level (ppm) across the cage floor was 3xs higher in the latrine area compared to the opposite area, and bacterial load covaried with ammonia level (ppm). However, histopathological analysis revealed no changes to the upper airways covarying with recorded ammonia level (ppm) or bacterial load. The study concludes that housing four C57BL/6J mice under the described conditions for ten weeks does not cause any overt discomfort to the animals.

Presenters

Jan-Bas Prins, PhD
Professor at LUMC / Honorary Professor at UCL
Director of the Biological Research Facility, The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

Hervé Lerat, PhD, HDR - Research Engineer
Directeur Unité Mixte de Services hTAG
Université de Grenoble-Alpes Inserm, France

Brun Ulfhake, MD, PhD
Professor, and Emeritus professor in Anatomy
Department of Laboratory medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

A live Q&A session will follow the presentation, offering you a chance to pose questions to our expert panelists.