We report results of a pre-clinical study to test the safety and efficacy of a prototype O₂ sensor to quantify muscle O₂ levels at rest and after exercise in an MM mouse model.

We have fabricated and characterized a prototype Clark-type O₂ nanosensor that was manually inserted in gluteus muscle of MM mice under isoflurane (1.5%) anesthesia within 90 seconds from completion of 20 minutes of treadmill-exercise.  Specific mice studied included control C57BL/6J mice and MM mice homoplasmic for an MT-ND6 complex I subunit mutation.

MT-ND6 mutant mice have a significant increase in muscle O₂ levels following moderate exercise, but not at sedentary baseline. This is the first study to directly confirm elevated muscle O₂ levels in MM mice, modeling similar observations in human MM subjects previously made by other techniques (Bank, 1994).  These preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of our prototype O₂ nanosensor to accurately measure muscle O₂ levels and distinguish MM from healthy controls in exercised mice.