Excessive urination, known as polyuria, is a hallmark feature of hyperglycemia and undiagnosed diabetes. In spontaneous mouse models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, like NOD, ob/ob, or db/db, the time course of development of symptoms is highly unpredictable and can easily span a period of several months. Thus, accurate diagnosis of disease onset usually requires frequent collection of blood or urine over extended periods to screen for hyperglycemia. A process which is invasive and stressful for the animals, and labor intensive for the researchers.
The Tecniplast DVC (Digital Ventilated Cage) system continuously monitors the bedding moisture in mouse cages and reports this as the Bedding Status Index (BSI). By repurposing this metric we have developed the Urination Index (UI) - a digital biomarker that allows for continuous monitoring of urination rates in the home cage.
We have launched the freely available app UrinatoR to bring this refinement to anyone using the DVC system.
With UrinatoR, the exact time of polyuria onset can be determined, and in mouse models of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, we have found that this is not only a robust indicator of the emergence of hyperglycemia - the Urination Index also scales linearly with changing blood glucose levels, providing a non-invasive and continuous metric for evaluation of the efficacy of glucose-lowering interventions.
Thus, UrinatoR represents a substantial refinement by enabling accurate monitoring and diagnosis of diabetes symptoms - continuously, in the home cage, and without collecting a single drop of blood or urine,
But don't just take my word for it - we have validated the Urination Index as a measure of hyperglycemia across several models and geographical locations with excellent results.
The paper is currently in revision, but until it's published you can read the full story in our preprint:
Brachs S., M. Dall, L.-K. Zimbalski, Y. Santin, C. Oeing, K. Mai, A. Parini, S. Gaburro, T.S. Nielsen:
"Robust non-invasive detection of hyperglycemia in mouse models of metabolic dysregulation: the novel Urination Index biomarker"
bioRxiv doi: XXX-XXX-XXX
Do you have lots of DVC data but no time to analyze it? Or do you need a more sophisticated analysis than the default UrinatoR output?
With my remote data analysis service, I can crunch the numbers for you , so you can focus on running the experiments.
In DVC Analytics, create the groups of cages that you want to analyze and apply the following analysis settings to export the Bedding Status Index data.
Use the dropdown menus to switch between plotting individual cages or group averages and to plot different metrics.
Adjust the visual appearance of the graph using the settings on the right.
Given the scalability of the DVC system to house the entire vivarium, the number of possible variations of study design are virtually unlimited.
Consequently, UrinatoR does not include any group-wise comparisons or statistical analyses.
Instead, we have incorporated the possibility to download all the data and results in an annotated and structured format, which can be used for further analyses.
I’m always excited to connect with like-minded professionals who are looking to advance preclinical in vivo research or need expert guidance on navigating the complexities of advanced in vivo methodologies.
