The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

Transgenic Animal Facility

The Facility, as its prime purpose, provision of centralized instrumentation and expertise in the generation, breeding and analysis of transgenic animals in support of research initiated by Collegiate investigators. The Facility functions by providing supplies, well-maintained equipment, and consultant expertise. The Transgenic Animal Facility is a fee-for-service core facility of the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. The main goal of the facility is to generate and subsequently identify transgenic mice requested by investigators in the biomedical sciences at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.

Animal breeding and husbandry is provided by an Animal Care Unit integrated directly into the transgenic facility with dedicated personnel experienced in the handling and maintenance of transgenic mice. An additional service includes the rederival of transgenic strains from other institutions.

The Facility is primarily concerned with providing the largest number of investigators with transgenic animals as needed for their research programs. Investigators, or staff whom they support, should prepare transgene constructs before submitting those constructs to the transgenic Facility for microinjection. User laboratories should be prepared to receive and maintain transgenic animals when delivered by the Facility. All investigators must have prior University Animal Care and Use Committee (UACUC) and Recombinant DNA approval for the experiments proposed and that approval must be on file with the Animal Care Unit and the Transgenic Facility Director.

Facility staff perform all manipulations required to generate transgenic animals for the investigator and will identify founder transgenic animals by PCR amplification using primers supplied by the user. The Facility delivers a minimum of three to five independent transgenic founders per construct. Upon request, the Facility Director will provide consultation to investigators regarding the breeding of transgenic lines and will maintain, if the investigator so chooses, a database of breeding records. Progress reports will be maintained within the Facility relative to all ongoing projects, together with all data required for proper contribution of the Facility to published reports or grant applications by investigators.

Mouse Strain

C57BL/6J X SJL/J (B6SJL, Jackson Laboratories)

Note

We can now provide microinjection services for investigators outside the State of Iowa. Contact the facility director with specific requests.

Publication Acknowledgement

Transgenic mice were generated at the University of Iowa Transgenic Animal Facility directed by Curt D. Sigmund, Ph.D. and supported in part by grants from the NIH and from the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. We wish to thank Norma Sinclair, Patricia Yarolem and Joanne Schwarting for their technical expertise in generating transgenic mice.