In fiscal year 2010, this Core continues to microinject constructs for the Mouse Cancer Genetics Program and their collaborators;both linear derived fragments of genomic DNA and BAC clones have been microinjected into inbred and F2 hybrid mouse strains, depending on the goal of the experiment. For fiscal year 2010 we have started performing in vitro fertilization (IVF) of mouse lines for the investigators of the MCGP in order to accelerate colony expansion for experimental research. IVF is a way to rapidly expand a mouse colony to generate large numbers of age, sex and genotypically matched cohorts for experimental use without vastly expanding the breeding colony. With IVF we can save on cage space, time, and costs as well as accelerate the time it takes to initiate experiments;IVF is basically a more efficient means to expand a mouse colony in a short amount of time. This year we started performing tumor cell and drug therapy injections for one lab and started performing castrations for a prostate cancer study for another scientist. We also set up an average of 200 timed pregnancies per week, ship out animal shipments as well as interbuilding transfers, for which we initiated all Material Transfer Agreements. A full list of services we provide investigators include microinjection, surgeries (embryo transfers, vasectomies, castrations, ovary transfers, ovariectomy, splenectomies and mammary biopsies), breeding, weaning, tail clipping, timed pregnancies, necropsies, palpation and measurement of tumors, injections, blood collection, rederivation, photography (slides and videos of mice), monitor aging studies, send animals to histopathology, initiate material transfer agreements, animal shipments, data entry and database management. The Transgenic Core Facility makes its own media and anesthetics used within the facility. We acid wash all of our own glassware, make all our own injection needles, holding pipettes and transfer pipettes. The Transgenic Core Facility also makes all our own microinjection dishes, which allows the injector to work with 150-200 embryos at a time instead of the standard 10-50 that depression slides hold. The Transgenic Core Facility is truly a multifaceted operation in that we can take care of just one aspect of a researchers mouse colony needs or we can manage the entire colony from the creation of the transgenic mouse lines to the lines final disposition and run all their experiments. Currently we are performing work for 9 different labs, maintaining experimental lines for six labs and performing the experiments under 11 separate Animal Study Proposals. The labs we are either managing the mouse colonies, running the mouse experiments and/or labs we have performed microinjection for in 2010 are all listed below. Cancer Pathways and Mechanisms Terry Van Dyke Neural Development Section Lino Tessarollo Stem Cell Regulation and Animal Aging Section Steven Hou Tumor Angiogenesis Section Brad St. Croix The Center for Advanced Preclinical Research Serguei Koslov Genetics of Vertebrate Development Section Mark Lewandoski Human Retrovirus Pathogenesis Section Barbara Felber Epigenetics of DNA Repair and Aging Section - Philipp Oberdoerffer RNA Processing in Cellular Development Section - Shalini Oberdoerffer
Showing the most recent 10 out of 23 publications
