Considering the microbiota of mice can dramatically reduce the number of animals to be used in diabetes studies
Globally, there is a call for reducing the number of animals for research. On the other side, there is also a need to find treatments and preventions for type 2 diabetes, for which the numbers of cases over the last decades has developed into a global epidemic, which calls for the use of a substantial number of laboratory animals.
The development of diabetes and the response to intervention in mouse models is under strong influence from all the bacteria that any mouse carries. Methods for identifying and counting all these bacteria have over the last decade become better and cheaper.
A study from the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at the University of Copenhagen now shows that if all these bacteria are identified and counted and the data are considered in the final data evaluation of the study, the number of mice to be used can be dramatically reduced.