Regular chow diet

Male and female C57Bl/6J mice and Bmal1^+/− mice were purchased from Jackson Laboratories (Bar Harbor, ME, USA). The Bmal1^+/− mice were bred and genotyped according to the recommended protocol to generate sex-, age-, and littermate-matched wild-type (WT) and KO animals. The mice had free access to water and a regular chow diet (Teklad) for the duration of the study and were allowed to acclimate for one week to the 12-hour light, 12-hour dark (lights on at 06:00 or Zeitgeber Time (ZT) 0) and constant room temperature conditions at the animal facility before use. All experimental procedures were approved by the Animal Care Committee of the University of Toronto.

Male Wistar rats (n = 108, mean weight 278 g, range 231–352 g) were purchased from Harlan (Horst, The Netherlands) and acclimated for at least 1 week. The animals were housed in groups under standardized laboratory conditions and received a regular chow diet (Harlan Teklad, Madison, WI, USA) and water ad libitum.
All experimental protocols were approved by the animal institutional review board (Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, protocol #BEX183AB, approved on 23 March 2016) and were performed in compliance with institutional guidelines and the National Institute of Health Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (8th edition). The animal experiments are reported according to the ARRIVE guidelines.