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Mice as experimental models for human physiology: when several degrees in housing temperature matter

Nature Metabolism volume 3, pages 443–445 (2021)Cite this article

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Some ‘species differences’ between mice and humans can be diminished simply by housing mice at warmer temperatures. Failure to strategically turn up the thermostat may undermine the translation of findings in mice to insights into human metabolic diseases.

For the convenience of human experimentalists and caretakers, and to decrease costs, mice are generally housed at environmental temperatures below their thermoneutrality. Our comfort and fiscal frugality come at costs that may include inappropriate interpretation of findings and even compromised translatability of experimental findings to human physiology and disease. For practical and scientific reasons, mice have become the model organism of choice in a vast swath of biomedical research. Mice thrive and breed well in laboratory environments and can be housed economically, and powerful experimental approaches are now widely available to alter gene expression and to specifically evaluate molecular, cellular, tissue or systems biology. Importantly, basic metabolic and physiological mechanisms are generally conserved between these species. For example, mice are omnivores that eat in discrete bouts, and the mouse gastrointestinal tract largely develops and functions similarly to that of humans.

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Fig. 1: Room temperature versus thermoneutrality in mice.

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Acknowledgements

Writing of this commentary was supported by NIH grants DK089503 and DK117821 to R.J.S., and DK121759, DK125513 and AG069795 to O.A.M.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Surgery, Internal Medicine and Nutritional Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Randy J. Seeley

  2. Departments of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, and Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Ormond A. MacDougald

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  1. Randy J. Seeley
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  2. Ormond A. MacDougald
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R.J.S. and O.A.M. wrote sections of this commentary and edited the entire document.

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Correspondence to Randy J. Seeley.

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Competing interests

R.J.S. has received research support from Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Kintai; has received consulting fees from Novo Nordisk, Kintai and Scohia; and has equity positions in Zafgen, Calibrate Health and Rewind. O.A.M. has received research support from Novo Nordisk, Regeneron, AstraZeneca and Agilent.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Metabolism thanks Antonio Vidal-Puig for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Seeley, R.J., MacDougald, O.A. Mice as experimental models for human physiology: when several degrees in housing temperature matter. Nat Metab 3, 443–445 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-021-00372-0

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