The effects of group and single housing and automated animal monitoring on urinary corticosterone levels in male C57BL/6 mice.

Mice are used extensively in physiological research. Automated home-cage systems have been developed to study single-housed animals. Increased stress by different housing conditions might affect greatly the results when investigating metabolic responses. Urinary corticosteroid concentration is considered as a stress marker. The aim of the study was to compare the effects of different housing conditions and an automated home-cage system with indirect calorimetry located in an environmental chamber on corticosterone levels in mice. Male mice were housed in different conditions and in automated home-cage system to evaluate the effects of housing and measuring conditions on urine corticosterone levels. Corticosterone levels in single-housed mice in the laboratory animal center were consistently lower compared with the group-housed mice. Single-housed mice in a separate, small animal unit showed a rise in their corticosterone levels a day after they were separated to their individual cages, which decreased during the following 2 days. The corticosterone levels of group-housed mice in the same unit were increased during the first 7 days and then decreased. On day 7, the corticosterone concentrations of group-housed mice were significantly higher compared with that of single-housed mice, including the metabolic measurement protocol. In conclusion, single housing caused less stress when compared with group-housed mice. In addition, the urine corticosterone levels were decreased in single-housed mice before the metabolic measurement started. Thus, stress does not affect the results when utilizing the automated system for measuring metabolic parameters like food and water intake and calorimetry.