Measuring Respiratory Function in Mice Using Unrestrained Whole-body Plethysmography

Abstract

Respiratory dysfunction is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world and the rates of mortality continue to rise. Quantitative assessment of lung function in rodent models is an important tool in the development of future therapies. Commonly used techniques for assessing respiratory function including invasive plethysmography and forced oscillation. While these techniques provide valuable information, data collection can be fraught with artefacts and experimental variability due to the need for anesthesia and/or invasive instrumentation of the animal. In contrast, unrestrained whole-body plethysmography (UWBP) offers a precise, non-invasive, quantitative way by which to analyze respiratory parameters. This technique avoids the use of anesthesia and restraints, which is common to traditional plethysmography techniques. This video will demonstrate the UWBP procedure including the equipment set up, calibration and lung function recording. It will explain how to analyze the collected data, as well as identify experimental outliers and artefacts that results from animal movement. The respiratory parameters obtained using this technique include tidal volume, minute volume, inspiratory duty cycle, inspiratory flow rate and the ratio of inspiration time to expiration time. UWBP does not rely on specialized skills and is inexpensive to perform. A key feature of UWBP, and most appealing to potential users, is the ability to perform repeated measures of lung function on the same animal. Video LinkThe video component of this article can be found at

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“…UWBP is an adequate technique for assessing those parameters, especially when also accounting for the animal's weight, body temperature, ambient temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, flow of gas/air into the recording chamber, flow of gas/air out of the chamber, and the activity/behavioral state (resting, moving, grooming, sniffing, eating, drinking, etc., which aid data interpretation) of the animal. 42 Despite some limitations, as discussed by Bates et al, 43 UWBP is considered valid if performed correctly and modeled after the Drorbaugh-and-Fenn formula. 44 In this commonly used method, animals are not restrained, but movement is restricted by the use of a relatively small chamber to keep the volume small with respect to the animal's size.…”