Qwhat frequency should sonication be used?
AIt is recommended to use the conventional ultrasound cleaning frequency
QCan PEG400 be used instead of PEG300?
APEG300 has moderate viscosity, which facilitates the dissolution and administration of drugs, while also providing good tolerability without adverse effects on animals. PEG400 can replace PEG300.
PEG600 is not very recommended because its melting point is close to room temperature.
QCan Tween-80 be used instead of Tween-20?
ATween-20 is not recommended. Tween-80 has better tolerance and has been used as a tool to assess the behavioral effects of experimental drugs and toxins without significant side effects.
Reference: Castro CA, Hogan JB, Benson KA, Shehata CW, Landauer MR. Behavioral effects of vehicles: DMSO, ethanol, Tween-20, Tween-80, and emulphor-620. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1995 Apr;50(4):521-6.
QAnimals cannot tolerate DMSO well. How should the dosage of DMSO be controlled during administration?
AFor normal mice, the concentration of DMSO should be kept below 10%. For nude mice, transgenic mice, or mice with weak tolerance, the concentration of DMSO should be kept below 2%. For inhibitors being used for the first time, it is recommended to perform a solvent-negative control experiment to confirm that the solvent has no nonspecific effects on the animals.
QHow much inhibitor should be added in cell experiments?
AIt is recommended to refer to literatures of experiments conducted using the same model. In addition, it is also necessary to determine the optimal working concentration (concentration gradient) through pre-experiments by constructing a dose-response curve. Similarly, the optimal incubation time (time gradient) should be determined through a time-course experiment. Moreover, the amount of inhibitor used is influenced by various factors, including the accessibility of the target, cell permeability, incubation time, cell type, and others. We recommend determining the initial concentration of the inhibitor by referring to the literatures.
If the Ki or IC50 are reported, it is recommended to start with 5-10 times their reported values to achieve the optimal inhibition of enzyme activity.
If the Ki or IC50 are unknown, the inhibitor concentrations should be tested, and the Ki value can be calculated using Michaelis-Menten kinetics.
Typically, the solvent used for dissolving the inhibitor is used as a control to eliminate the non-specific effects of the solvent.