Skip to main content

Filter Search Results

Publication Year

Animal Models

Topic Area

Methods

Funding Mechanism

Division of Comparative Medicine

Collaborating ICs

Selected Grantee Publications

Establishing the Hybrid Rat Diversity Program: A Resource for Dissecting Complex Traits

Dwinell et al., Mammalian Genome. 2025.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39907792

Rat models have been extensively used for studying human complex disease mechanisms, behavioral phenotypes, and environmental factors and for discovering and developing drugs. Systems genetics approaches have been used to study the effects of both genetic variation and environmental factors. This approach recognizes the complexity of common disorders and uses intermediate phenotypes to find relationships between genetic variation and clinical traits. This article describes the Hybrid Rat Diversity Program (HDRP) at the Medical College of Wisconsin, which involves 96 inbred rat strains and aims to provide a renewable and reusable resource in terms of the HRDP panel of inbred rat strains, the genomic data derived from the HRDP strains, and banked resources available for additional studies. Supported by ORIP (R24OD024617) and NHLBI.

Establishment of a Practical Sperm Cryopreservation Pathway for the Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum): A Community-Level Approach to Germplasm Repository Development

Coxe et al., Animals (Basel). 2024.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38254376/

The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is an important biomedical research model for organ regeneration, but housing and maintaining live animals is expensive and risky as new transgenic lines are developed. The authors report an initial practical pathway for sperm cryopreservation to support germplasm repository development. They assembled a pathway through the investigation of axolotl sperm collection by stripping, refrigerated storage in various osmotic pressures, cryopreservation in various cryoprotectants, and in vitro fertilization using thawed sperm. This work is the first report of successful production of axolotl offspring with cryopreserved sperm and provides a general framework for pathway development to establish Ambystoma germplasm repositories for future research and applications. Supported by ORIP (R24OD010441, R24OD028443, P40OD019794).

Conduction-Dominated Cryomesh for Organism Vitrification

Guo et al., Advanced Science. 2024.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38018294/

Vitrification-based cryopreservation via cryomesh is a promising approach for maintaining biodiversity, health care, and sustainable food production via long-term preservation of biological systems. Here, researchers conducted a series of experiments aimed at optimizing the cooling and rewarming rates of cryomesh to increase the viability of various cryopreserved biosystems. They found that vitrification was significantly improved by increasing thermal conductivity, reducing mesh wire diameter and pore size, and minimizing the nitrogen vapor barrier of the conduction-dominated cryomesh. Cooling rates increased twofold to tenfold in a variety of biosystems. The conduction-dominated cryomesh improved the cryopreservation outcomes of coral larvae, Drosophila embryos, and zebrafish embryos by vitrification. These findings suggest that the conduction-dominated cryomesh can improve vitrification in such biosystems for biorepositories, agriculture and aquaculture, and research. Supported by ORIP (R24OD028444, R21OD028758, R24OD034063, R21OD028214), NIDDK, and NIGMS.