Blood Chemistry

A Cobas Integra 400 serum analyzer is used to measure a range of soluble serum components using approximately 85 µl of serum. Serum levels of alkaline phosphatase, albumin, total cholesterol, triglycerides, blood urea nitrogen, glucose, alanine aminotransferase, bilirubin, phosphate, creatinine, calcium, uric acid, and the electrolytes sodium, potassium, and chloride are measured and recorded. Blood chemistry is a useful, high throughput tool for the analysis of knockout mice. For example, mice lacking p53R2 develop glomerular injury and renal failure. Detailed blood chemistry analysis of these mice revealed a number of abnormalities in blood chemistry consistent with the phenotype (Powell et al., 2005).

Displayed below is a sample graph of how blood chemistry results are presented. In comprehensive phenotypic data packages results, male and female mutant mice are shown both separately and combined for all tests in interactive graphs. Raw or calculated data and statistics can be seen by clicking on points in the graph.

Figure illustrates total cholesterol (left) and triglycerides (right) of male and female mutant mice. Cholesterol and triglyceride values of wild type littermates (green circle), heterozygous (blue triangle), homozygous (red diamond), and recent historical wild type (purple line) mice are plotted against long-term historical values (± 2 standard deviations) for wild type animals (green shading). Recent wild type values are calculated from data collected within 60 days of current measures and long-term historical values are derived from data collected on more than 10,000 wild type mice.