Re-establishment of a breeding colony of immunocompromised mice through revival of cryopreserved embryos

摘要

Cryopreservation of embryos or germ cells is commonly used in animal facilities to archive strains of genetically modified mice, both to reduce facility space usage and to protect the strains from losses due to environmental disaster, genetic drift, disease outbreak or breeding failure. The authors' institution maintains a cryopreservation repository for various mouse strains, including immunocompromised mice. When the institution experienced a breeding failure with one strain of immunocompromised mice (NOD.CB17-Prkdc scid/NcrCrl), the authors successfully re-established a breeding colony of the mice by reviving frozen embryos from the institution's cryopreservation repository. They confirmed that the recovered progeny lacked T and B cells. The authors conclude that a breeding colony of immunocompromised mice can be successfully re-established from a minimal number of cryopreserved embryos.