Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Important advances have been made in the recognition of factors influencing metabolic functions. However, key questions remain regarding the mechanisms underlying the regulation of behaviors that govern food intake and physical activity as well as cellular nutrient uptake/utilization, body composition and energy expenditure. Rodent (rats and mice) models are most appropriate to evaluate such vital functions. Accordingly, animal facility instruments such as metabolic cages and in vitro muscle test systems have been developed to measure rapidly and reliably the effects of specific treatments or diets on food/water intake, energy expenditure in vivo, as well as muscle physiology/functionality in vitro. However, those instruments are not available at UQAM's animal facilities and must be acquired. They will be primarily used on a routine basis by my students and staff to perform experimental procedures described in research programs that I recently proposed to NSERC, CIHR and FRQS. Also, the instruments availability will enable some of my colleagues, faculty members and investigators from other departments or other universities in the Montreal area to acquire complementary data for their own studies. The instruments will be located in UQAM's animal facilities at the Pierre-Dansereau campus. Its director, Dr. Manon St-Germain, DVM, has recently agreed to allocate space and a budget for the installation of the instruments in the locals of the animal facility. Importantly, my own expertise with the use of such metabolic cages and my collaborator A.S. Comtois' extensive skill in in vitro muscle testing warrant that the requested instruments will be promptly functioning and made available to trainees, HQP and other users. The availability of such instruments will enable us to collect most valuable data from in vitro and animal models that will be used to decipher the highly complex mechanisms underlying the regulation of energy balance and muscle functions.