Figure 1.
Treadmill-based measurement of gait properties in Mecp2stop/y mice.
(A) Video still image showing mouse walking on transparent treadmill (viewed from below) at 25 cm/s. (B) Placement of each paw is detected from the video illustrated in (A). (C) Graph of paw area in contact with the treadmill surface for each paw over time (one session, one animal); the area outlined in black has been replotted in (D). (D) Excerpt from (C) showing calculated paw area in contact with treadmill surface over time for a representative single paw (right fore; pink in B and C), from which multiple stride indices can be obtained (labeled). (E) Column plots showing stride time measures (mean +/− SEM) for each limb in 8 week old wild-type (WT) and Mecp2stop/y mice (***p<0.001 relative to WT; t-test, n = 5 per genotype).
Figure 2.
Automated gait analysis reveals early signs of motor defects in Mecp2stop/y mice.
(A) Plot showing aggregate phenotype severity score (mean +/− SEM) in male wild-type (WT, black diamond symbols) and Mecp2stop/y (grey circles) mice. Mecp2stop/y mice show a gradual phenotype score progression that is significantly different from WT (WT n = 7; Mecp2stop/y n = 8 at 3–7 weeks, n = 7 at week 8, n = 5 at week 9 and n = 4 at week 10); decreasing numbers of Mecp2stop/y mice are explained by early death of some mutant mice. (B–F) Plots showing stride length, overlap distance, stance width, step angle and gait symmetry (mean +/− SEM) measured in WT and Mecp2stop/y mice at 4, 8 and 10 weeks (WT n = 7 at 4 weeks and 5 at 8 & 10 weeks; Mecp2stop/y n = 6 at 4 weeks, n = 5 at weeks 8 & 10. The treadmill speed was 25 cm/s. *p<0.05 **p<0.01 ***p<0.001, Mann Whitney pairwise comparisons (A) and 2-way repeated measures ANOVA with Tukey post hoc pairwise comparisons (B–F).