Metabolic caging for animal research.

摘要

Metabolism is the generation of by-products in the body from food consumed, and it includes the steps of digestion, absorption, distribution and elimination. Each of these important aspects of metabolism can be investigated in the animal research lab, and special equipment has been developed for this purpose. Foremost among this equipment is the metabolic cage.The utility of a metabolic cage extends across many disciplines. A behaviorist may study rodents' feeding and exercise activity. A pharmacologist would be interested in compounds excreted in the urine during a drug study. An animal nutritionist might determine the amount of an ingested substance absorbed by the intestines of an animal by measuring what's left in its fecal pellets. A toxicologist could examine biochemical metabolites released in the breath of an animal after treatment with an injected chemical. A metabolic cage may be used in all of these approaches.