Guidelines and considerations for metabolic tolerance tests in mice

Abstract

The epidemic of the century, Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is continuously rising. Intensive research is urgently needed whereby experimental models represent an essential tool to optimise the diagnostic strategy and to improve therapy. In this review, we describe the central principles of the metabolic tests available in order to study glucose and insulin homeostasis in mice, focusing on the most widely used – the glucose and insulin tolerance tests. We provide detailed experimental procedures as well as the practical implementation of these methods and discuss the main factors that should be taken into account when using this methodology.