The measurement of the carbon monoxide uptake is a technique recently adapted to the laboratory mouse. In previous publications, such technique has been used to analyse changes in lung function when alveolar injury occurs after irradiation. In the present study, each mouse is exposed along 8 weeks. The animal is allowed to rebreath in a closed chamber, during one minute with a known gas mixture containing 0,28 % of carbon monoxide (CO). CO uptake is calculated from comparison of two concentration measurements in ambient gas: the first measure, at the beginning of the experiment, the second one at the end of the considered period. The aim of this study is to measure CO uptake on 20 healthy mice, resulting from six stocks, Balb/c, 129Sv, C3H, DBA/2, SJL and C57Bl of 6 to 13 weeks old, and check for the existence of relation between the measured CO uptake on one side and age, sex or stock of considered mice on the other side.

This experiment contributes to build up under restricted conditions a model for mouse alveolar exchange monitoring and established reference values contribute to open a new approach in the quantitative evaluation of the respiratory function in laboratory mouse.