Kargopolceva D.R., Kryshen K.L., Makarova M.N., Katelnikova A.E., Zueva A.A., Matichin A.А., Gajdaj D.S. Impact assessment of potential risks from warmer enviromental temperature of laboratory animals (mice, rats, guinea pigs) outside the recommendated range for main biological parameters. Laboratory Animals for Science. 2019; 3. https://doi.org/10.29296/2618723X-2019-03-09
Adverse environmental conditions can lead to animal stress. That, in turn, might trigger inaccurate study results. Creature of enabling environment therefore is essential to perform every preclinical study. The maintain a comfortable environmental temperature occupies an important place in housing laboratory animals. Today guidelines and recommendations for maintenance and care for laboratory animals have already produced and it contains differ data about average comfortable temperature of animal housing, like mice, rats and guinea pigs. Although it is impossible to exclude the occurrence of emergency situations in sources, in which the microclimate indicators, in particular the temperature of laboratory animals, deviate from the recommended ranges. Animals have a preferred temperature range that is comfortable and relatively warm, called the thermoneutral zone. There are very few literary data which describe the influence of small increasing of environmental temperature on tested parameters. In our researching work we described the effect of warmer environmental temperature on main biological parameters of male and female mice, rats and guinea pigs like: general animal state, body weight, hematological and blood biochemical parameters and weight of internal organs to body weight ratio. Experimental animals were housed at the temperature: 27, 28, 29°C and 30°C for week. Other animals were housed for 4 weeks at the initial temperature 27°C with gradual increasing by 1°C weekly until 30°C. The study found that the small increasing of environmental temperature (between 27 and 30°C) didn’t effect on animal vital signs and risks in case of emergency situations related to the provision of the recommended content temperature are minimal.
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