DIY peristaltic perfusion pump and rotarod apparatuses from common and recycled materials

Abstract

To reduce the high costs of research associated with specialized laboratory equipment, the current study aimed to construct and validate two devices (peristaltic perfusion pump and rotarod) critical in physiology, neuroscience, and histology laboratories using largely recycled materials and affordable electrical parts. The resulting systems are comparable to commercially available devices but at a fraction of the cost. The peristaltic perfusion pump has an adjustable flow rate suitable for the whole-body perfusion of rats and mice. Testing in rodents confirmed that the pump operated conveniently and consistently, yielding high-quality tissue perfusion and fixation. The rotarod worked flawlessly in behavioral studies with live mice, yielding speed, torque, acceleration and timing comparable to commercially-available devices. Collectively, the findings indicate that the purpose-built peristaltic perfusion pump and rotarod can be used in research laboratories as cost-effective alternatives to comparable but costly commercial devices.

Keywords:

• Behavioral tests
• perfusion pump
• peristaltic pump
• rotarod
• tissue perfusion
• tissue fixation

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Diyala for the use of facilities, including the Physiology and Chemistry laboratories and the animal house. A special thanks goes to the manager of the animal house (Dr. Kudaier Alani) for donating the animals and housing them throughout the study period. The authors are deeply appreciative to the owner of Max Group Aluminium (Ahmed Ali Altimemi) for his assistance in providing aluminium frames and accessories. We also acknowledge Wael Almuslehi for the generous gift of IV tube sets from his pharmacy.

Ethical approval

All animal surgeries and behavioral testing were approved by the Scientific Animal Ethics Committee of College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Diyala, Iraq. All animal experiments were performed in accordance with the guidelines and regulations of the Animal Utilization Protocol for Research; the recommendations and guidelines provided by the committee were applied under the supervision of a committee member while using animals in this study.

Authors’ contributions

MSMA designed the devices and carried out all construction and laboratory work. Both MSMA and JRC conceived and designed the study, provided all resources, reviewed and assessed the study data, drafted the manuscript, and edited and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).