APB
Cryopreservation
Cryopreservation of mouse strains has many benefits to researchers and is an important part of any colony management plan. It reduces the risk of important research projects being stalled or halted entirely due to unexpected events such as disease, genetic contamination or natural disaster. Maintaining cryopreserved samples also allows researchers to decrease the size of active research colonies, further reducing costs.
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To encourage the cryopreservation of unpublished strains, a 2 year embargo is permitted on listing on the APB database. After the completion of the 2 years, the embargo will be lifted.
Sperm cryopreservation
APB accept 5 male mice with an optimal age between 10-16 weeks. Older mice can be submitted but the sperm concentration and quality may decline. If poor quality sperm is observed from 2 or more mice, we will request further mice be submitted for archiving.
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All 5 male mice do not need to be supplied at the same time. Shipment of the mice is at researcher cost. You will only be charged one cryopreservation fee per strain (5 male donors).
Embryo cryopreservation
A minimum of 6 male mice and 16 female mice, with an age of 6-8 weeks of the same genotype are required. More female mice may be required if ovulation is not optimal. Background female mice can be used for the embryo cryopreservation.
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The depositor is responsible for the shipment of the mice and for the caging fees of breeders if needed.
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Our recommendation is to cryopreserve 150-250 homozygous embryos or
300-350 heterozygous embryos
Quality control
For all samples submitted at APB, a post-thaw quality control (QC) test will be performed. This QC test is included in our cryopreservation services.
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The QC test cannot guarantee that the strain can be recovered in the future.
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We offer additional QC fertilisation tests for the frozen sperm and embryo samples at cost. This test will determine the IVF fertilisation rate of the sperm and the development of the embryos.
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Storage
We operate two laboratories offering sperm and embryo cryopreservation according to best practice protocols. Frozen samples will be divided between the Australian Phenomics Facility and Monash University Facility. This allows duplicate storage of our samples at separate facilities.
Our liquid nitrogen tanks are held in secure and automated facilities with 24/7 monitoring and alarm systems notifying staff of potential storage problems.