A toolbox for the longitudinal assessment of healthspan in aging mice.
Ilaria BellantuonoR de CaboD EhningerClara DiGermanioAllan LawrieJ MillerS J MitchellI Navas-EnamoradoP K PotterT TchkoniaJosé Luis TrejoDudley W LammingPublished in: Nature protocols (2020)
The number of people aged over 65 is expected to double in the next 30 years. For many, living longer will mean spending more years with the burdens of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Although researchers have made rapid progress in developing geroprotective interventions that target mechanisms of aging and delay or prevent the onset of multiple concurrent age-related diseases, a lack of standardized techniques to assess healthspan in preclinical murine studies has resulted in reduced reproducibility and slow progress. To overcome this, major centers in Europe and the United States skilled in healthspan analysis came together to agree on a toolbox of techniques that can be used to consistently assess the healthspan of mice. Here, we describe the agreed toolbox, which contains protocols for echocardiography, novel object recognition, grip strength, rotarod, glucose tolerance test (GTT) and insulin tolerance test (ITT), body composition, and energy expenditure. The protocols can be performed longitudinally in the same mouse over a period of 4-6 weeks to test how candidate geroprotectors affect cardiac, cognitive, neuromuscular, and metabolic health.
Keyphrases
- body composition
- cardiovascular disease
- type diabetes
- left ventricular
- high fat diet induced
- resistance training
- glycemic control
- healthcare
- public health
- bone mineral density
- cognitive decline
- squamous cell carcinoma
- pulmonary hypertension
- working memory
- cross sectional
- insulin resistance
- health information
- adipose tissue
- heart failure
- radiation therapy
- social media
- coronary artery disease
- mesenchymal stem cells
- atrial fibrillation
- locally advanced
- health promotion
- gestational age