You can use a syringe needle-type miniature oxygen electrode. It is convenient to use in animals, and very easy to make it in the lab.

For my own opinion the best way to measure oxygen saturation in living animals. You can do it by using special tools sold by VisualSonics-The Vevo® LAZR Photoacoustic Imaging System. Here is a link

http://www.visualsonics.com/photoacoustic-technology

Drawing a blood sample and running it in a blood gas machine would tell you the amount of oxygen in the blood during a hypoxic condition. You may have difficulty correlating to a tissue model since cell culture requires such a low O2 content than animals in hypoxic conditions.

Measurement of PaO2 could be interesting but it must be done in hypoxic environment. O2 saturation could also measured in mouse but it is more complicated and needed contention boxes. Finally perhaps you can use HIF-1alpha quantification to assess the final level of hypoxia in heart if you use acute hypoxia.

Hi there,

First, and just to avoid any confusion, blood PO2 would never be the same as in your chamber. It would be much lower. Saying this, and as stated by other colleages I would suggest measuring blood PO2. There are a few nice toys as optic O2 sensors (Presens) that could be implanted in your rat veins and arterias. We have done this before in crabs. Another option would be an external infrarred sensor that could be attached to the rat. I have never used those, but it something that I would love to try. I think there are two options here, one is from PreSens again, and the other is from Powerlab systems. Have a look at their websites. Any of the suggested methods will answer your question.

Good luck!

You can use a syringe needle-type miniature oxygen electrode. It is convenient to use in animals, and very easy to make it in the lab.

Hi Khaja,

I just wanted to follow up on Boris' answer above. One oxygen sensor that has been used in various animal models and tissues for ischemic and hypoxic conditions reliably is the OxyLite system. Perhaps this will solve your problem. Cheers https://www.scintica.com/products/oxford-optronix/oxygen-monitors/