| First Author | Loos M | Year | 2014 |
| Journal | PLoS One | Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 9 | Pages | e108563 |
| PubMed ID | 25264768 | Mgi Jnum | J:222491 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:5644748 | Doi | 10.1371/journal.pone.0108563 |
| Citation | Loos M, et al. (2014) Sheltering behavior and locomotor activity in 11 genetically diverse common inbred mouse strains using home-cage monitoring. PLoS One 9(9):e108563 |
| abstractText | Functional genetic analyses in mice rely on efficient and in-depth characterization of the behavioral spectrum. Automated home-cage observation can provide a systematic and efficient screening method to detect unexplored, novel behavioral phenotypes. Here, we analyzed high-throughput automated home-cage data using existing and novel concepts, to detect a plethora of genetic differences in spontaneous behavior in a panel of commonly used inbred strains (129S1/SvImJ, A/J, C3H/HeJ, C57BL/6J, BALB/cJ, DBA/2J, NOD/LtJ, FVB/NJ, WSB/EiJ, PWK/PhJ and CAST/EiJ). Continuous video-tracking observations of sheltering behavior and locomotor activity were segmented into distinguishable behavioral elements, and studied at different time scales, yielding a set of 115 behavioral parameters of which 105 showed highly significant strain differences. This set of 115 parameters was highly dimensional; principal component analysis identified 26 orthogonal components with eigenvalues above one. Especially novel parameters of sheltering behavior and parameters describing aspects of motion of the mouse in the home-cage showed high genetic effect sizes. Multi-day habituation curves and patterns of behavior surrounding dark/light phase transitions showed striking strain differences, albeit with lower genetic effect sizes. This spontaneous home-cage behavior study demonstrates high dimensionality, with a strong genetic contribution to specific sets of behavioral measures. Importantly, spontaneous home-cage behavior analysis detects genetic effects that cannot be studied in conventional behavioral tests, showing that the inclusion of a few days of undisturbed, labor extensive home-cage assessment may greatly aid gene function analyses and drug target discovery. |
