Additional Services

•  Embryo Aggregation

Day 2.5 mouse embryos can be aggregated to generate chimera mice.  Morula are collected from superovulated mice. Zona pellucida (outer membrane) is removed chemically and one denuded embryo from each strain is cultured overnight in a welled petri dish. The following morning, aggregated embryos are transferred into pseudopregnant recipients. Offspring are maintained at TAF until weaning age, then transferred to the investigator.  

•  Ovarian Transplants

TAF can perform ovarian transplants to rescue lines of mutanted or transgenic mice that have difficulties breeding or have never generated offspring. Donor mutanted/transgenic females are moved to the quarantine room at Biotechnology Center. TAF will excise the ovaries and transfer them into two recipient ovariectomized wild-type females (one per recipient). Recipient females must be strain histocompatible with the donor. Recipients are housed at TAF for two weeks to assure recovery from the surgery then transferred to the investigator for breeding.

•  Sperm Cryopreservation/Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection

Sperm cryopreservation is a means of long-term storage of valuable lines when embryos can not be produced from valuable strains, either due to low embryo production and loss of genetic value. Hybrid sperm survive the freezing/thawing procedure at acceptable rates then require in vitro fertilization to obtain embryos for transfer into pseudopregnant recipients. Unfortunately, inbred sperm do not survive the freezing/thawing procedure well and intracytoplasmic sperm injections are necessary to obtain live offspring. Currently, efforts are under way within TAF to develop sperm cryopreservation/in vitro fertilization procedures. Contact TAF for more information/progress report.