Protocol for Long Duration Whole Body Hyperthermia in Mice

Summary

This paper describes a protocol for whole body hyperthermia in mice that can stimulate fever like conditions up to 12-24 hr.

Abstract

Hyperthermia is a general term used to define the increase in core body temperature above normal. It is often used to describe the increased core body temperature that is observed during fever. The use of hyperthermia as an adjuvant has emerged as a promising procedure for tumor regression in the field of cancer biology. For this purpose, the most important requirement is to have reliable and uniform heating protocols. We have developed a protocol for hyperthermia (whole body) in mice. In this protocol, animals are exposed to cycles of hyperthermia for 90 min followed by a rest period of 15 min. During this period mice have easy access to food and water. High body temperature spikes in the mice during first few hyperthermia exposure cycles are prevented by immobilizing the animal. Additionally, normal saline is administered in first few cycles to minimize the effects of dehydration. This protocol can simulate fever like conditions in mice up to 12-24 hr. We have used 8-12 weeks old BALB/Cj female mice to demonstrate the protocol.

Protocol

1. Animal Ethics

Before performing the long duration hyperthermia on mice make sure that the procedure has been approved by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. All the procedures discussed in this paper and shown in the accompanying video were approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee of the National Institute of Immunology.

2. Understanding Hyperthermia

Whole Body Hyperthermia (WBH) is delivered by placing the animals in prewarmed cages that are placed in incubator maintained at 39.5°C. During the standardization of protocol, a temperature sensor was surgically implan....

Discussion

As far back as 5,000 B.C., Egyptian doctors treated tumors with heat. The Greeks recognized the value of heat in some medical treatments. The most ancient texts of the Law of Moses mention hot springs (Genesis 36:24) to therapeutically elevate body temperature.

The earlier techniques employed either the use of pyrogenic microbial extracts for induction of fever or hot water baths for induction of hyperthermia ¹. However none of these approaches could be easily monitored or controlle.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Thermistor	RS components	528-8558
CO2 Incubator	Heraeus	B5060 EK-CO2
Mice cages	Citizen industries ltd.		Type B 365X207X190 cm
Animal feed	Provimi India
Water bottle for cage	Local supplier		Glass bottle
Soldering iron	Solderon, India
50 ml Centrifuge tubes	BD Biosciences	352070
Timer	Local supplier
1 ml Syringe with 26G needle	BD Biosciences	309602
Saline	Local supplier