The Cryopreservation Facility at the WHRI offers the possibility of freezing murine embryos and sperm from transgenic lines through cryopreservation. Cryopreservation is an advantageous process for safely preserving murine embryos and sperm at very low temperatures easily rederive /cryorecover them. It significantly reduces costs associated with colony maintenance, functions as a backup of transgenic lines, it complies with Home Office 3Rs (refinement, reduction and replacement).
The facility currently offers:
Embryo cryopreservation - consists of harvesting and cryopreserving approximately 300 embryos from a single transgenic line. This technique has the advantage of preserving the original parental genotype and it is straightforward to recover through Non-Surgical Embryo Transfer (NSET). It dramatically reduces costs associated with colony maintenance, particularly those of low use strains.
Sperm cryopreservation - involves the cryopreservation of sperm recommended as an alternative or complement to embryo cryopreservation. The transgenic line can be then recovered through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF).
Recovering (rederivation/cyrorecover) transgenic lines - when a transgenic line is needed again, it can be recovered from cryopreserved stocks. Non-Surgical Embryo Transfer (NSET) is a quick and effective procedure to recover the line from cryopreserved embryos, while In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) is the procedure used to recover cryopreserved sperm.
Transferring lines between HO recognised establishments - transgenic lines can be transferred to other establishments by sending frozen embryos or sperm subject to PPL licence.
The QM FMD Transgenic Service provides state of the art techniques and expertise for cryopreservation and rederivation of murine transgenic lines. The aim of the service is to help the scientific community. The services provided may be tailored to suit each customer’s needs.The service focuses on applying a 3R approach to all of the projects undertaken.
For further information please email: transgenic-cryopreservation@qmul.ac.uk