Bead study: a novel method to measure gastrointestinal transit in mice

Background Intestinal transit assessment in mice using existing methods requires long recording periods or euthanization of animals to localize a tracer. We have developed a novel in vivo method to assess gastrointestinal (GI) transit in mice based on a clinically used ‘shapes study’. Methods Mice (n = 70) were gavaged with 5 steel beads and barium 3 h before, with another dose of barium gavaged 10 min before imaging. Mice were fluoroscoped for 20–60 s, and then most of them were euthanized and the GI tract removed to confirm the localization of the beads fluoroscopically. The in vivo and postmortem recordings were analyzed and each bead was scored depending on its location; a total score was calculated by adding individual bead scores. Total scores obtained from the two methods were compared. A group of mice (n = 10) were examined on three occasions, before and after treatment with loperamide or prucalopride. Key Results The stomach and cecum were consistently outlined by barium, serving as reference landmarks. There was an excellent overall correlation between in vivo and postmortem transit scores (r = 0.93). Analysis of scores for individual gut segments revealed high agreement for stomach, cecum, and expelled beads, and moderate agreement for the small bowel and colon. Gastrointestinal transit scores were decreased by loperamide and increased by prucalopride compared with baseline. Conclusions & Inferences Metallic beads are reliably localized by videofluoroscopy in vivo within the GI tract. This novel imaging method enables repetitive measurements of GI transit in vivo and detects changes induced by motility‐modifying agents. A new in vivo technique to measure GI transit in mice was developed using radiopaque markers and videofluoroscopic image analysis. There was excellent correlation between transit scores obtained from in vivo analysis compared with transit scores obtained during postmortem analysis. Compared with baseline scores in the same animals, administration of loperamide or prucalopride yielded lower or higher transit scores respectively, thus validating the ability of this method to detect changes in transit after an intervention.