OBJECTIVE: To review available options of assessing murine bladder function and to evaluate a non-invasive technique suitable for long-term recording. METHODS: We reviewed previously described methods to record rodent bladder function. We used modified metabolic cages to capture novel recording tracings of mouse micturition. We evaluated our method in a pilot study with female mice undergoing partial bladder outlet obstruction or sham operation, respectively; half of the partial obstruction and sham group received treatment with an S6K-inhibitor, targeting the mTOR pathway, which is known to be implicated in bladder response to obstruction. RESULTS: Our non-invasive method using continuous urine weight recording reliably detected changes in murine bladder function resulting from partial bladder outlet obstruction or treatment with S6K-inhibitor. We found obstruction as well as treatment with S6K-inhibitor to correlate with a hyperactive voiding pattern. CONCLUSIONS: While invasive methods to assess murine bladder function largely disturb bladder histology and intrinsically render post-cystometry gene expression analysis of questionable value, continuous urine weight recording is a reliable, inexpensive, and critically non-invasive method to assess murine bladder function, suitable for a long-term application.
CITATION STYLE
Sidler, M., J. Aitken, K., Forward, S., Vitkin, A., & J. Bagli, D. (2018). Non-invasive voiding assessment in conscious mice. Bladder, 5(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.14440/bladder.2018.582
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