Developmental changes in lung function of mice are independent of sex as a biological variable

Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2024 Feb 20. doi: 10.1152/ajplung.00120.2023. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTPulmonary function testing (PFT) in mice includes biomechanical assessment of lung function relevant to physiology in health and its alteration in disease, hence, it is frequently used in preclinical modeling of human lung pathologies. Despite numerous reports of PFT in mice of various ages, there is a lack of reference data for developing mice collected using consistent methods. Therefore, we profiled PFTs in male and female C57BL/6J mice from 2 to 23 weeks of age, providing reference values for age- and sex-dependent changes in mouse lung biomechanics during development and young adulthood. Although males and females have similar weights at birth, females weigh significantly less than males after 5 weeks of age (p < 0.001) with largest weight gain observed between 3 and 8 weeks in females and 3 and 13 weeks in males, after which weight continued to increase more slowly up to 23 weeks of age. Lung function parameters including static compliance and inspiratory capacity also increased rapidly between 3 to 8 weeks in female and male mice, with male mice having significantly greater static compliance and inspiratory capacity than female mice (p < 0.001). Although these parameters appear higher in males at a given age, allometric scaling showed that static compliance and inspiratory compliance were comparable between the two sexes. This suggests that differences ...
Source: Am J Physiol Lung Ce... - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Source Type: research