2.1 Animals
All experiments were approved by Animal Care and Use Committee of the
Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University and adhered to National
Institute of Health Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals. In
the first part of the study, male wild-type (WT) C57BL/6J mice (8-12
weeks, 25-30 g) were purchased from the Experimental Animal Center of
Southern Medical University. In the second part, maleTrpm4−/− mice on C57BL/6J background (8-12
weeks, 25-30 g, Shanghai Model Organisms China) and WT littermates were
bred from homozygous mating. All mice were housed in the specific
pathogen-free facility with a 12 h light/dark cycle and offered free
access to water and stand chow. The genotype of mice was confirmed by
extracting DNA from mice tail and then separating DNA in agarose gel.
All efforts were made to minimize the number of animals used in this
study and their suffering.