Different data from different labs: lessons from studies of gene-environment interaction.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Genetics
• Animal Models

Background:

• Standardizing mouse behavior tests is crucial for reliable research.
• Previous studies suggest laboratory environments can influence behavioral outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of independent laboratories on mouse behavior test standardization.
• To determine if identical protocols yield consistent results across different lab environments.

Main Methods:

• Conducted six standardized behavioral tests on eight mouse genetic groups across three independent laboratories.
• Compared results considering factors like mouse origin (shipped vs. local breeding) and sex.

Main Results:

• Genetic effects were consistently large, while shipping and sex had minimal impact.
• Behavioral outcomes showed strong laboratory dependence for locomotor activity, cocaine activation, and elevated plus maze.
• Ethanol preference and water escape learning yielded consistent results across labs, indicating task-dependent standardization success.
• Most large inbred strain differences were replicated, but moderate differences varied significantly among labs, particularly for 129-derived strains.

Conclusions:

• Test standardization offers advantages but achieving identical results across diverse lab environments is challenging.
• Laboratory environment's influence on mouse behavior is task-specific.
• Mouse behavioral tests are not inherently unreliable, despite lab-specific variations; key genetic differences are often reproducible.