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What You Will Provide

• An account number.
• Two male mice of the same strain.
• The males must be between 3 and 7 months of age and their fertility must be demonstrated by breeding to produce pregnancy or pups.
• You will document the fertility of the males used for cryopreservation.

What We Will Provide

• Cryopreservation of sperm, 10 straws each per mouse, 20 straws total.
• Storage in liquid nitrogen at two sites for five years. Subsequent storage will be billed to the lab. Current storage costs are $100 per year per strain.

Cost

• $2,500 for cryopreservation and storage for five years at two sites.
• Test thaws to birth (IVF) are available for an extra charge.

Timeline

• The time to cryopreserve sperm is only dependent on the availability of mature, proven males and can be performed immediately.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I store the samples in our lab liquid nitrogen freezer?
     We do not normally allow labs to store their own samples. Unlike tissue culture cells, cryopreserved sperm are highly sensitive to small changes in temperature, such that even briefly pulling canisters to find tubes can irreparably damage embryos.

Sperm cryopreservation
     We use the 2008 Ostermeirer et al "Jax protocol" for sperm cryopreservation. This procedure works for sperm from the common inbred strains. Sperm cryopreservation does not have the long track record of embryo cryopreservation, so the reliability is not as established.

     Despite the improvement of sperm cryopreservation and IVF protocols, the inbred nature of most mouse strains means that we need two males of the same strain of proven fertility to ensure success.

     For some inbred strains with particularly poor superovulation--for example, BALB/c--reanimation may require that eggs from another strain be used for in vitro fertilization.

     The fertility of the specific males to be used for crypreservation must be documented.

In vitro fertilization for reanimation.