Environmental enclosure for the determination of fuel metabolism across a range of temperatures

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This is a request for an Environment Enclosure to be used with our metabolic caging system for small rodents that will allow variable temperature control within the metabolic caging. This infrastructure is urgently needed as it will allow us to measure energy expenditure and whole-body substrate oxidation across a range of temperatures, capabilities that we do not currently possess. This need has become critical given the expansion of our NSERC funded research programs into the study of fuel metabolism in the cold and the increasingly recognized importance of housing rodents under thermal neutral conditions; indeed, a number of our recent papers and grant applications, have been criticized for their failure to measure energy expenditure under thermal neutral conditions. In order for us to remain internationally competitive and to continue to provide the highest standard of training to highly qualified personnel (HQP), it is essential for our research programs to be able to measure energy expenditure and fuel oxidation across a range of environmental temperatures. While other universities in the region have metabolic cages with the capacity to regulate temperature the transfer of animals between institutions is logistically challenging and can cause stress to the animals, which can confound experimental results. Moreover, experiments typically involve monitoring animals for several days at a time, which means there will be significant demands on the system which further limits the feasibility of accessing the required infrastructure at other institutions. Given these points, obtaining the requested infrastructure in-house is the only feasible way to measure energy expenditure across various temperatures.***The research programs of primary applicants are integrative in nature, where HQP are encouraged to consider all factors influencing biological systems. Measuring energy expenditure provides critical information regarding the response to various perturbations. Indeed, obtaining the requested infrastructure will allow us to consider alterations in energy expenditure and fuel utilization in the cold. These same endpoints will also be measured in experimental rodents housed at thermal neutrality, a condition which is increasingly being recognized as superior to room temperature housing for translatability to human physiology. Over 40 HQP from across 6 research laboratories will immediately and directly benefit from the acquisition of the requested equipment. This group includes 17 MSc, 14 PhD, 13 undergraduates and 4 post-doctoral fellows, a large and diverse group of trainees with strong representation from multiple equity seeking groups. Of note greater than 50% of the HQP in the laboratories of the anticipated users are female.**