An automated sensitive approach for measuring whole gut transit time

Area of Science:

• Animal models
• Gastrointestinal physiology
• Biomedical imaging

Background:

• Current methods for measuring rodent whole gut transit time lack sensitivity, objectivity, and automation.
• There is a need for improved techniques to accurately assess gastrointestinal transit in preclinical research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel, automated method for measuring whole gut transit time in mice.
• To enhance the sensitivity, objectivity, and throughput of gastrointestinal transit time measurements.

Main Methods:

• Oral gavage of non-toxic fluorescent dye particles in mice.
• Automated fluorescence imaging of 8 cages simultaneously using custom MATLAB code for bolus detection.
• Comparison of automated detection with blind experimenter assessments.

Main Results:

• High sensitivity detection of fluorescent boli, with ready rejection of unstained boli.
• Automated system demonstrated high correlation (r = 0.95 ± 0.02) with experimenter assessments.
• Mean time to first fluorescent bolus ranged from 223-264 minutes post-gavage.

Conclusions:

• The developed method provides a reliable, automatic, and low-cost approach for measuring gastrointestinal transit time in mice.
• This novel technique improves the efficiency and accuracy of preclinical rodent studies.
• The automated system is robust and suitable for high-throughput analysis.