What We Will Provide Part I
- Hormones for injection, and instructions for tissue collection.
- An account number.
- The mice to be cryopreserved.
- Hormone injection, mating and tissue collection coordinated with core.
- Cryopreservation of 225 embryos or more (~25 embryos per straw).
- Storage in liquid nitrogen at two sites for five years. Subsequent storage will be billed to the lab. Current storage costs are $100 per year per strain.
- $3,000 for cryopreservation and storage for five years. Samples from a strain will be split between our liquid nitrogen freezer here and one at The Jackson Laboratory, currently costing $100/year. Most lines should produce enough high quality embryos in 3 sessions given a sufficiently large colony and typical fertility. Additional freezing sessions are $700 each.
- Test thaws to birth (FET) are available for an additional charge.
- The time to cryopreserve sufficient numbers of high quality embryos is dependent on the size of the colony and the fecundity of the strain.
- The time between order placement and the start of cryopreservation is currently immediately.
Online Ordering
- PI name, address and contact info
- Account number
- Genetic background
- Gene, transgene or trait
- Age of males
- Number of males
- Location of mice (building and room)
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I store the samples in our lab liquid nitrogen freezer?
We do not normally allow labs to store their own samples. Unlike tissue culture cells, preimplantation embryos are few in number and highly sensitive to small changes in temperature, such that even briefly pulling canisters to find tubes can irreparably damage embryos.
How many mice are expected from each group of 25 embryos?
We expect that each group of 25 embryos will
yield 10 live born mice. Thus, 200 cryopreserved embryos should provide more
than sufficient backup for a strain or mutant. However, if cryopreserved
embryos will be the only source of this strain or mutant in the world, we
recommend freezing two or three times as many.
How many mice are required to get 225 healthy embryos?
Ten to twenty-five plugged, superovulated females are required, depending on the genetic background. A robust, highly fertile outbred strain like CD1 might be frozen in one session from 12 females and six stud males. Typical inbred strains might be cryopreserved in two sessions, mating two sets of 12 superovulated females to 6 stud males. Fewer mice and reduced fecundity will require a larger number of freeze sessions.
The stud males must be older than 2 months
of age, and less than a year old. Males should be housed individually for
two weeks prior to mating. If it has been some time since they have mated
or if it is their first time, put a female in their cage 2 weeks before
mating for cryopreservation, and then remove the female one week later.
Females should be 6 to 10 weeks old. We will
provede hormones to the investigator to superovulate the females.
Superovulation is the forcing of ovulation through timed injection of hormones, allowing us to synchronize and
schedule matings. Superovulation also can lead to greater numbers of eggs
in some strains.
What level of confidence can be placed in the frozen samples?
We chose the parameters that we did with the belief
that the typical need of investigators would be for backup of strains or mutants
that are available elsewhere. If your intention is to cryopreserve as the sole
source of a mutant or strain, we recommend that you cryopreserve twice. Alternatively, you can donate your strain to a public repository and distributor like The Jackson Laboratory or the Mutant Mouse Resource & Research Centers (MMRRC).