Transporting anesthetized pigs in the laboratory setting

At the Department of Experimental Medicine at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, more than 500 pigs a year are used in various experimental procedures at three different facilities. These pigs, ranging in size from newborn piglets to 350-kg pregnant sows, must be moved between procedure rooms and the housing area while anesthetized or heavily sedated. Transporting anesthetized pigs in the laboratory setting often requires strenuous manual lifting, posing a hazard to the safety of animal care personnel and to the welfare of the pigs. Improved ergonomic techniques for lifting and transporting pigs are therefore needed to protect personnel from work-related injuries. Camilla Schumacher-Petersen and colleagues developed an improved approach to lifting and transporting anesthetized pigs weighing up to 350 kg at their facility by adapting commercially available equipment used for elderly and patient care. The simple lifting technique can be used by any animal care facility to enable the transport of pigs.

See page 237

Long-term effects of administering streptozotocin to neonatal mice

Streptozotocin (STZ) is a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is produced from the gram-positive bacterium Streptomyces achromogenes. Chemical induction of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus via repeated, low-dose administration of STZ remains one of the most widely used models of diabetes mellitus in mice. Lorena Ariza et al. adapted this model in neonatal mice, administering low doses of STZ to the mice on postnatal day 3 (P3), P4 and P8, and found that hyperglycemia was induced in the mice by the time of weaning. The authors determined the long-term effects of this treatment on both male and female neonatal mice by measuring their body weights and glucose concentrations and evaluating their kidney, pancreas and liver pathology over a 23-week period. The results show sex differences in the long-term effects of STZ treatment as well as an oncogenic effect of STZ treatment on the liver. These findings should be taken into account when developing welfare supervision protocols and when evaluating the usefulness of this model.

See page 242