Artificial microbiome heterogeneity spurs six practical action themes and examples to increase study power-driven reproducibility.

ABSTRACT: With >70,000 yearly publications using mouse data, mouse models represent the best engrained research system to address numerous biological questions across all fields of science. Concerns of poor study and microbiome reproducibility also abound in the literature. Despite the well-known, negative-effects of data clustering on interpretation and study power, it is unclear why scientists often house >4 mice/cage during experiments, instead of ≤2. We hypothesized that this high animal-cage-density  practice abounds in published literature because more mice/cage could be perceived as a strategy to reduce housing costs. Among other sources of 'artificial' confounding, including cyclical oscillations of the 'dirty-cage/excrement microbiome', we ranked by priority the heterogeneity of modern husb

SUBMITTER: Basson AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7081340 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature