Sperm Cryopreservation
Introduction
Mouse sperm can be stored in liquid nitrogen (-196°C) for a conceivably infinite period of time and then used to regenerate a colony of live animals. There are several advantages to banking sperm in LN2:
- Provides “insurance” in case of animal loss due to breeding failure, pathogens, or natural disasters
- Reduce cage costs when mice are no longer needed for experimental purposes
- Reduce demand for limited animal housing space
- Simplifies shipment of animals and avoids importation quarantines
Service Description
- We will harvest sperm from 2 genetically identical donor males
- Sperm/cryoprotectant suspension will be pooled together and loaded into 21 straws
- Twenty straws will be split between two separate LN2 tanks for long-term storage
- The last straw will be thawed to assess concentration, survival and motility of sperm sample
- Our sperm cryopreservation protocol is based on Ostermeier et al, 2008
What You Need to Do
- Contact the TRP to schedule a cryo session
- Provide the TRP with two healthy transgenic males
- Ideally, the males should be between the ages of 8-16 weeks.
Some Things to Consider
- The cost of sperm cryo is cheaper than embryo cryo, but the cost to rederive mice using frozen sperm (IVF) is more expensive than embryo rederivation.
- Cryopreserving haploid sperm may require more breeding of rederived mice compared to freezing and rederiving diploid embryos.
- Sperm cryo may not be suitable for some inbred strains or strains with multiple transgenic mutations.
Prices and Guarantees
- Sperm cryopreservations are charged on a per session basis. We will harvest and freeze sperm from 2 transgenic male donors per session (sperm samples will be pooled together before freezing).
- A test straw will be thawed after freezing in order to provide information on the survival, concentration and motility of your stored samples.
- Successful cryopreservation of sperm depends greatly upon the strain, transgenic mutations, age, breeding history, and health of the donor male.
- Click here for current rates.
Reserve a Sperm Cryopreservation Session
To order a sperm cryopreservation session, go to our TRP Forms page. Fill out a “Request for Sperm Cryopreservation” form and e-mail it to Robert J Hunter.