Evaluation of tarsal injuries in C57BL/6J male mice.

Tarsal joint abnormalities have been observed in aged male mice on a C57BL background. This joint disease consists of calcaneal displacement, inflammation, and proliferation of car- tilage and connective tissue, that can progress to ankylosis of the joint. While tarsal pathol- ogy has been described previously in C57BL/6N substrains, as well as in STR/ort and B10. BR strain, no current literature describes this disease occurring in C57BL/6J mice. More importantly the behavioral features that may result from such a change to the joint have yet to be evaluated. This condition was observed in older male mice of the C57BL/6J lineage, around the age of 20 weeks or older, at a frequency of 1% of the population. To assess potential phenotypic sequela, this study sought to evaluate body weight, frailty assessment, home cage wheel running, dynamic weight bearing, and mechanical allodynia with and with- out the presence of pain relief with morphine. Overall mice with tarsal injuries had signifi- cantly higher frailty scores (p\u3c 0.05) and weighed less (p\u3c0.01) compared to unaffected mice. Affected mice had greater overall touch sensitivity (p\u3c0.05) and they placed more weight on their forelimbs (p\u3c0.01) compared to their hind limbs. Lastly, when housed with a running wheel, affected mice ran for a shorter length of time (p\u3c0.01) but tended to run a greater distance within the time they did run (p\u3c0.01) compared to unaffected mice. When tested just after being given morphine, the affected mice performed more similarly to unaf- fected mice, suggesting there is a pain sensation to this disease process. This highlights the importance of further characterizing inbred mouse mutations, as they may impact research programs or specific study goals

Non-Motor and Motor Features in LRRK2 Transgenic Mice

10.1371/journal.pone.0070249PLoS ONE87-POLN

Etude immunologique et neurocomportementale de souris transpolygéniques pour des fragments du chromosome 21 humain

ORLEANS-BU Sciences (452342104) / SudocSudocFranceF

Cognition abilities in the passive avoidance test and gastrointestinal dysfunction in BAC <i>LRRK2^R1441G</i> Tg and NTg mice.

<p><b>A.</b> Latency to step through the white compartment with trials in the passive avoidance test. 5 NTg and 6 Tg aged 21 months old were tested up to 10 consecutive times the first day and 24 h after the last trial. <b>B–C.</b> Water content in the stool collected in one hour and dry stool weight after evaporation of the water content of Tg and NTg mice aged from 2 to 21 months old. Data are means ± SEM, number of animals are indicated in the corresponding bar of the histogram, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 with Welch’s t test for unequal variances.</p

Anxiety and depression-like behaviors in BAC <i>LRRK2^R1441G</i> Tg and NTg mice with age.

<p><b>A.</b><b> </b> Distance, percentage of time spent in the opened and closed arms, and percentage of entries done in the opened and closed arms in a 5 min test on the elevated plus maze. <b>B.</b> Immobility time recorded in a 6 min tail suspension test. <b>C.</b> Immobility time recorded in a 6 min forced swimming test. Data are means ± SEM, number of animals are indicated in the corresponding bar of the histogram. The brackets indicate data given only as indication; these data were not included in the statistics due to the small size of the group considered.</p

Sensory functions of <i>LRRK2^R1441G</i> Tg and NTg mice with age.

<p>A. Olfaction tests at 6 and 14 months old. <b>a-d.</b> Wooden block test average time sniffing the familiar block in trial 1 to 6 (a), block preferences in trial 7 (b), and time sniffing the blocks within trials at 6 months (c) and 14 months (d). <b>e–f.</b> Latency to find and begin to eat the hidden food within trials in 8 NTg and 6 Tg mice aged 6 months old, and (e) average of latencies to find and eat the hidden food in the same mice (f). “D1” to “D5” represent “Day 1” to “Day 5” and “Surf” or “Surface” means “Surface test” occurring on the 6^th day of testing. <b>B.</b> Time licking and biting the injured paw in the early and late phases of the 30 min formalin test in mice at 6, 9 and 21 months old. Data are means ± SEM, number of animals are indicated in the corresponding bar of the histogram.</p

Activity with age in 3 min intervals in the 15 min Open Field test.

<p>Horizontal, vertical and fine activity as well as total activity in the center of the arena, of mice at 6, 12, 16 and 20 months old. These results come from the experiments shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0070249#pone-0070249-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a> but expressed in 3 min intervals. Data are means ± SEM. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001, with Welch’s t test within two values of the graph, MANOVA test analysis with “genotype” and “intervals” as factors when considering the genotype effect.</p

Lie-X: Depth Image Based Articulated Object Pose Estimation, Tracking, and Action Recognition on Lie Groups

Pose estimation, tracking, and action recognition of articulated objects from depth images are important and challenging problems, which are normally considered separately. In this paper, a unified paradigm based on Lie group theory is proposed, which enables us to collectively address these related problems. Our approach is also applicable to a wide range of articulated objects. Empirically it is evaluated on lab animals including mouse and fish, as well as on human hand. On these applications, it is shown to deliver competitive results compared to the state-of-the-arts, and non-trivial baselines including convolutional neural networks and regression forest methods. Moreover, new sets of annotated depth data of articulated objects are created which, together with our code, are made publicly available

LINC00116-encoded microprotein mitoregulin regulates fatty acid metabolism at the mitochondrial outer membrane

Summary: LINC00116 encodes a microprotein first identified as Mitoregulin (MTLN), where it was reported to localize to the inner membrane of mitochondria to regulate fatty acid oxidation and oxidative phosphorylation. These initial discoveries were followed by reports with differing findings about its molecular functions and submitochondrial localization. To clarify the apparent discrepancies, we constructed multiple orthogonal methods of determining the localization of MTLN, including split GFP-based reporters that enable efficient and reliable topology analyses for microproteins. These methods unequivocally demonstrate MTLN primarily localizes to the outer membrane of mitochondria, where it interacts with enzymes of fatty acid metabolism including CPT1B and CYB5B. Loss of MTLN causes the accumulation of very long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Intriguingly, loss of MTLN protects mice against western diet/fructose-induced insulin-resistance, suggests a protective effect of VLCFAs in this context. MTLN thus serves as an attractive target to control the catabolism of VLCFAs