Animal facilities

The work performed in my laboratory was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute (CA 075575, CA 088943 and CA 112660) and the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-02-1-0102). The animal facilities at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center are supported in part by a core grant from the NCI (CA 16672). 

Animal facilities have traditionally been under the purview of the scientist. However, there are special safety and health considerations which should be involved in the design of individual animal rooms. These facilities may, also, include housing for insects, parasites, etc. 

The key to design of animal facilities is simplicity. All surfaces should be washable and a water source available In each... 

Animal studies require the approval of a local institutional animal care and use committee and have to be performed in special animal facilities. Often, the... 

As is the case with all other pharmaceutical substances, all aspects of antisera production must be undertaken by means conducive to the principles of GMP. Most regulatory authorities publish guidelines which outline acceptable standards/procedures for the production of such blood-derived products. Donor animals must be healthy and screened for the presence of (particularly blood-borne) pathogens. They must be housed in appropriate animal facilities, and withdrawal of blood must be undertaken by aseptic technique. Subsequent downstream processing must be undertaken according to the principles of GMP, as laid down in Chapter 3. 

Takahashi If you have a mouse that is clockless it is much more susceptible to disturbances. In clock mutants that are arrhythmic, if you are not careful the noise in the animal facility wiU actually drive a diurnal day-active activity pattern. We see this in Cry double knockouts too. They are arrhythmic, so they are highly susceptible to being disturbed. This leads to this diurnal activity pattern. 

Hastings I am not a geneticist, but it is safe to say that penetrance isn t complete. Some of the animals are completely arrhythmic, but most of them aren t. This is a phenotype we have seen in several different animal facilities. These mice are interesting at a number of levels. For example, they can be useful as a model to study the liver devoid of SCN control. As for the origin of the antiphasic behaviour, it is a systems neuroscience question. Recent work from Mike Menaker s lab (Abe et al 2002) has shown the existence of weak extra-SCN oscillators in the brain which may or not be involved in the antiphasic behaviour of Vpacl knockout mice under dark—dark conditions (DD). 

The use of a 2-day lag period from the time of diazinon application to the use of office or domestic indoor space appears adequate to eliminate exposure risks from vapors and residues that might be incurred from either inhalation or dermal absorption. Air sampling of a room treated with 36 pest control strips measured a maximum diazinon air concentration of 1.34 pg/m3 15 days postapplication (Jackson and Lewis 1981). Similarly, Williams et al. (1987) found that air sampling in two animal facility areas used by facility personnel and treated monthly with a 1% aqueous diazinon solution measured 2-3 pg/m3 less than 24 hours postapplication. Currie et al. (1990) also measured diazinon air concentrations in empty and... 

The requirements for animal facilities, housing, and environmental conditions are as described for subchronic studies. Special attention must be paid to diet formulation because it is impractical to formulate all of the diets for 2-year study from a single batch. In general, semisynthetic diets of specified components should be formulated regularly and analyzed before use for test material content. 

Mice can develop less arthritis in a clean(er) animal facility. Other factors, like stress, may also influence the development of arthritis. When moving to a new facility, first test whether the model still works before conducting new experiments. 

Abnormally high grooming activity may be due to a strain-specific compulsive-like phenotype (consider using a more appropriate strain) or due to unintended stress in the animal facility (which may be assuaged by improved husbandry or enrichment). 

Wiley, Kip, Nick Vucinich, John Miller, and Max Vanzi. 2004, November. Confined Animal Facilities in California. California State Senate, http //www.sen.ca.gov/sor/reports/ REPORTS BY SUBJ/ENVIRONMENT NATURAL RESOURCES/CAFFYI.pdf (accessed June 16, 2006). 

Stringent control of environment conditions and proper animal care techniques are mandatory for meaningful results. As part of such control, access to animal facilities should be monitored to prevent excessive traffic and other disturbances. Factors such as housing conditions, intercurrent disease, drug therapy, impurities in diet, air, water, and bedding can significantly influence the outcome of experiments. 

Standard pathogen free animal facilities for housing and handling of animals (3). 

Animal facility and equipment a specific pathogen free (SPF) Animal facility for mice is required other equipment is indicated where needed in the methods section. 

In addition, the animals used should be characterized with regard to age, sex, body weight, breeding facility (origin of the animals and acclimatization (at least 14 days) to the environment in the animal facility. 

Animals. Sprague-Dawley female rats raised on regular chow (Way Rodent Blox 8604) were bred at the Animal Facility of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Females were mated with males of the same strain. Pups were kept with their dams from birth to the time of the experiment. Pups were separated from their dams and fasted for 14 hours before each experiment. 

To produce an antiserum, the antigen for the first immunization is often prepared in an adjuvant (usually a water in oil emulsion containing heat-killed bacteria), which allows it to be released slowly and to stimulate the animal s immune system. Subsequent injections of antigen are done with incomplete adjuvant that does not contain the bacteria. The species used to raise the antibodies depends on animal facilities, amount of antigen available, and the amount of antiserum required. Another consideration is the phylogenetic relationship between antigen and immunized species. A highly conserved mammalian protein may require an avian species in order to raise... 

Mercaptans are colorless and odorous gases linked to animal facilities, wastewater treatment plants, and paper and pulp manufacturing. It is released from decaying organic matter in marshes and is present in the natural gas of certain regions of the United States, in coal tar, and in some crude oils. If mercaptans are in the air, even at low concentrations, they are very noticeable. 

Five-week-old BALB/c, C57BL/6, or BALB/c nu/nu male mice were obtained from Japan SLC Inc. (Shizuoka, Japan). The animals were cared according to the animal facility guideline of the University of Shizuoka. 

The use of in vitro systems such as cell cultures, tissue slices, and cell lines has become of major importance for several reasons. First of all, the common practice of the use of experimental animal models for studying toxicity of chemicals meets serious and growing criticism for ethical and economic reasons. Toxicity studies aiming at performing a hazard or a risk assessment inevitably will include adverse effects and thus discomfort for the animals involved. Moreover, the cost of running an animal facility and performing toxicity studies is an increasingly important limitation. 

Isolation does, however, not mean that access to the test system or their housing or treatment localities generally needs to be restricted, save in some special circumstances, and apart from what would be dictated by sound scientific reasons. An example in case would be the restrictions for the access to certain animal facilities Because of special requirements, e.g. because of a specific pathogen-free or even sterile environment, access to these may have to be limited to authorised persons only. 

Mouse plasma C57BL6 mouse plasma, mixed sex, lithium heparin anticoagulant (Sanford-Burnham Animal Facilities, La Jolla, CA, USA) (r eNote 1). Store aliquots at -20 °C. Store thawed aliquot on ice and flash-freeze the remaining blood sample at end of assay day. 

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