Here at the Mouse Biology Program (MBP), we have extensive experience with mouse breeding and colony management. Our trained professional staff can assist you with devising and implementing a breeding plan to generate the cohort or mouse model your research requires.
Back-Crossing by Speed Congenic Breeding
Custom Breeding and Colony Management
Germline Testing of Chimera
Gnotobiotic Services
Mouse Housing and Health Status
Performance Guarantees
Vivarium Rates
Back-Crossing by Speed Congenic Breeding
MBP offers background strain analysis using universal genotyping arrays, which can be utilized to shorten the number of generations of back-crossing required to achieve a true congenic strain. After each round of breeding, we sample the transgenic offspring and perform analysis to determine which of them have the highest percentage of the desired (recipient) strain. We then make recommendations for which offspring to select for breeding in the next round. We recommend screening more animals in the earlier generations (N2/N3) as this process is highly dependent on the number of mice tested and analyzed. Following this testing scheme, a congenic line can be established by N5 or N6, (1.5 years) compared to traditional back-crossing that requires at least ten generations and approximately three years of breeding.
If you are interested in our Speed Congenic or background strain analysis services, please contact our project management team at mbp@ucdavis.eduor call us at 530-754-MOUSE.
Custom Breeding and Colony Management
The MPB has dedicated space, resources, and experienced colony mangers and vivarium staff to assist you with design and implementation of your project. We would be happy to discuss any of your mouse breeding requirements. Our project managers can provide strain management for complex breeding schemes, including recombinase breeding to modify an existing mouse allele, or to create double and triple mutant lines with complex genotypes. We understand the complexities of mutant alleles, including those from the Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP) and the European Mouse Mutant Archives (EMMA), including cells from the EUMMCR, and mice with EUCOMM alleles that are similar to KOMP alleles. We work closely with you and your lab to ensure caging is kept to the minimum needed, and breeders are refreshed as needed to maintain the line without loss of alleles.
Experienced colony managers will build and maintain your mouse colony in accordance with your experimental requirements. In addition to providing you with monthly colony reports, through MOSAIC, our colony management tracking system, you will have 24/7 access to information on your colony. The size of your mouse colony and the number of cages will depend on your requirements. For simply maintaining a strain, 2-3 breeding cages and 6-8 holding cages is sufficient. Further we can generate a homozygous colony if necessary.
We can make recommendations for breeding schemes, and for archiving lines to protect from catastrophes. Cryopreservation of mutant strains is highly recommended for insurance against accidental loss.
To learn more about how to start planning your project, please contact our project management team at mbp@ucdavis.edu or call us at 530-754-MOUSE.
Germline Testing of Chimera
Chimera are produced when clonal mutant ES cells are injected into donor blastocysts (or morula) and resulting pups contain a mixture of both mutant and wild type (host blastocyst) cells. At the MBP, chimera are assessed for coat color at 10 days of age. The percent coat color that is mutant cell derived is thought to correlate with the probability that mutant cells contributed to the germline (testes) cells of the chimera. Therefore, appropriately sexed chimera determined to contain 50% or more mutant cells will be set with females. Breeding will begin when males are 7 to 9 weeks of age. When possible, each male chimera will be set with up to females of the appropriate genetic background for GLT breeding.
Most mouse Embryonic Stem (ES) cells lines are derived from male mice, this is the case for KOMP and Eucomm generated ES cells and the ES cells used by the MBP for targeting projects. Therefore, in most cases, only the male chimera are bred for Germ-Line Transmission testing (GLT). Chimera are allowed to breed until either they produce the desired heterozygous germline pups, they are deemed nonproductive, or they produce 25 wild type pups, whichever comes first. If a male chimera is non-productive for 30-45 days, the male may be submitted for sperm collection, sperm morphological analysis and determination of suitability for IVF services. Please note that some chimera are hermaphroditic and may not produce sperm at all. We estimate a timeline of 4-6 months for germ-line transmission testing. Once founders are produced we will proceed with arranging shipment or any additional services requested such as FLP or Cre recombination breeding.
To learn more about germ line testing or how to start planning your project, please contact our project management team at mbp@ucdavis.edu or call us at 530-754-MOUSE
Gnotobiotic Services
The Mouse Biology Program is pleased to announce that we are offering limited gnotobiotic and germ-free mouse services. In our newly established Gnotobiotics facility, we are capable of maintaining germ-free and defined flora mice in flexible film isolators. Each isolator is available to house your project at a biweekly rate. We offer many of the same services as our conventional barrier does, and more! There are three different stock colonies available for purchase. Facility entry limited to animal care and core personnel only.
Our Gnotobiotics facility houses top of the line flexible film isolators that are currently available for use. Supplies are either autoclaved in cylinders that are hooked up to the isolator ports and fogged with a chemical sterilant, or dunked in that same sterilant before fogging. All supplies entering the isolator are monitored to ensure sterility of both the mice and the unit itself. Our stock colony isolators are tested biweekly using a combination of PCR, gram stain, and aerobic, anaerobic and fungal cultures.
Services include:
Setting up and maintaining breeding units.
Record keeping of all essential data. Get access to MOSAIC for live updates.
Ear notching pups for genotyping and identification as needed.
Tail-cutting and ear-notching pups for genotyping as needed.
Submission of tissue for in-house or pick up by customer for testing.
Frequent microbiological testing to confirm sterility of isolators.
Sentinel monitoring.
Coming soon:
Individually ventilated cages; great for small projects!
Rederivation of your unique line to generate a germ-free colony.
Colonization of defined flora via gavage.
Blood collection.
To learn more about how to start planning your project, please contact our project management team at mbp@ucdavis.edu or call us at 530-754-MOUSE.
Mouse Housing and Health Status
UC Davis M3 (Barrier Housing Facility)
The UC Davis, M3 Barrier is an 18-room, high health-status, restricted-entry mouse barrier facility. Entry is limited to animal care and transgenic corepersonnel only. Personnel enter through a shower facility; all equipment and supplies are sterilized prior to transfer into the facility. Staff wear personal protective equipment, including dedicated uniforms and shoes, hair bonnets, masks and double gloves. Mice are housed in individually ventilated caging systems and manipulated under laminar change stations. All mice are rederived by embryo transfer into this facility. Dirty bedding sentinels are set up in each mouse room. Sentinels (Athymic Nude-Fox1nu) and pseudopregnant recipient females (CD1) are supplied from our M3 barrier breeding colonies. Sentinels and random weanlings from the room are screened quarterly, with the exception of the maternity room where each recipient animal is sent for pathogen screening at the time of litter weaning. For more information on our barrier facility, including investigator, shipping contact, and campus veterinarian, please see our Summary of M3 Barrier Practices.
Current health reports are available for each of our distribution rooms and are available upon request for each of our breeding and maintenance rooms in our M3 barrier facility Health reports can be found at the links below. Maternity rooms are used exclusively to house embryo transfer recipient dams, and each embryo recipient is screened upon weaning of their litter. Individual animals reports are provided once the recipients are screened. Health screening and report preparation takes about 2 – 3 weeks post weaning, and will be made available prior to shipment of the litter. Please see the following veterinary statement regarding any recent concerns in our barrier facility: M3 Veterinary Statement.
UC Davis MBP Vivarium (Conventional Housing with Limited Access)
The UC Davis Mouse Biology Program Vivarium is a 7-room, Clean Barrier facility with an additional room for quarantine housing. Entry is limited to animal care personnel only. Staff wear personal protective equipment, including dedicated uniforms, shoes and gloves. Mice are housed in ventilated caging systems and manipulated under laminar change stations. Mice are rederived into the facility by embryo transfer and subsequent breeding (Clean breeding rooms), may be obtained from approved clean rooms from commercial vendors, or thoroughly health screened and imported from institutions with clean health status for phenotyping services. Additionally mice can be imported from a variety of institutions with varying health statuses into our quarantine facility which is physically separated from our clean vivarium at an offsite location. Cross contamination is prevented by strict equipment and personnel traffic patterns, attention to room order and change of personal protective equipment. Dirty bedding sentinels are set up in each mouse room and are screened quarterly. Sentinels are obtained from a clean barrier facility and each cage contains 2 nude and 2 furred animals. For more information on our conventional facility, including investigator, shipping contact, and campus veterinarian, please see: Summary of MBP Conventional Practices.
To view additional health history and veterinary statements, please visit Historical Health Reports.
Performance Guarantees
Due to the large number of factors affecting breeding performance, such as the specific mouse strain characteristics and the mutant phenotype, we cannot offer any guarantees in terms of output or numbers of cages required. However, we can offer general guidelines as to the number of cages and mice required for a particular project.
To learn more about how to start planning your project, please contact our project management team at mbp@ucdavis.edu or call us at 530-754-MOUSE.
Vivarium Rates
Please see our order page here for vivarium rates.
