Non-Invasive Metabolic Monitoring

At the Monash Metabolic Phenotyping Platform, users can choose between our Promethion Metabolic Screening system and our Oxymax Comprehensive Laboratory Animal Monitoring System (CLAMS) to capture synchronised metabolic and behavioural information.

Oxymax-CLAMS machine

• Synchronous measurement of VO2, VCO2, energy expenditure, food intake, and activity levels.
• Generates metabolic data every 15 minutes in up to 12 mice simultaneously.
• Housed in a fully enclosed and temperature controlled environment, making it the ideal option for temperature sensitive experiments.

Promethion Metabolic Screening system

• High definition multiplexed respirometry system for synchronous measurement of VO2, VCO2, energy expenditure, food and water intake, and activity levels.
• Generates metabolic data every 5 minutes in up to 16 mice simultaneously.
• Provides automated behavioural analysis.

Real life data generated by the Promethion Metabolic Screening System:

We examined energy expenditure, ambulatory activity, wheel running activity, as well as food and water intake over a 24 hour period in 12 week old male C57BL/6J mice (n=7). Graphs on the first panel (Page 3) show that mice are significantly more active during the dark cycle (A-F), which corresponds to a greater amount of time spent eating, drinking, and wheel running (G). Graphs on the second panel (Page 4) show the natural diurnal variation in mice during the light (0700 - 1900 hours) and dark (1900 - 0700 hours) cycles (A-E) and that mice consume the majority of food intake during the dark cycle (F). Behavioural analysis (G) shows that when compared to the light cycle, during the dark cycle mice are more likely to (a) have a short rest after wheel running (62% likelihood vs. 22% likelihood during the light cycle); (b) drink more water after eating (16% vs. 7%); (c) have a short lounge (5-60s rest) after drinking water (53% vs. 33%).

The graphs on the first panel show the collated data for all mice. Specifically, data for oxygen consumption (VO2; A), respiratory quotient (RQ; B), energy expenditure (C), ambulatory activity (D), wheel running activity (E), food intake (F) and time budgets (G) are shown. Figures A-F shows 24 hour total data, and also data separated into the light cycle (0700 - 1900 hours) and dark cycle (1900 - 0700 hours). For figures A-F, data are presented as a scatter plot (bars denote mean ± standard deviation). * p<0.01, ** p<0.001 for light vs. dark cycle.

The  graphs on the second panel show individual data for one mouse