Portal South - user guidelines
Portal South is responsible for importing/exporting animals, biological products, embryos, sperm, etc. from all over the world to researchers at PKL. Re-derivation, cleansing and cryopreservation-related services are also available at the unit.
Import/export and health monitoring
Import: After receiving the import request, you are required to send in the health status report of the sending facility and health report of the imported animals (last 18 months). The reports should not be more than three months old. Based on the report of health monitoring, import can be carried out through quarantine as recommended by the designated veterinarian or for rederivation.
Export: After we have received your export request, you are required to send in necessary health documents depending on the rules and regulations of the receiving country. The designated veterinarian writes a health certificate after the inspection of the animals that are exported. The health certificate must not have been issued more than 24 hours before the export.
We also kindly ask you to fill in "The animal order and transfer form".
Cryopreservation
Cryopreservation, normally used in combination with in vitro fertilization (IVF) is a technique that gives you the opportunity to save your valuable strains for experiments in the near or far future. Briefly, by using one male and a group of female animals we can produce a large number of embryos via in vitro fertilization. After a slow freezing process these embryos will be kept in our cryobank for your future use.
How is it done?
To perform the cryopreservation, we need you to provide us with two to three males. They should be within the age three months (minumum) and twelve months (maximum). If you plan to use wild type females (e.g. C57BL/6J) this will be arranged via PKL. If you prefer to use your own strain specific females, you should provide us with three- to four-week-old female animals (as young as possible). For the IVF we usually need 35 females. If you prefer to use your own animals, it is recommended that you provide us at least with 10-20 females for each trial. For any IVF attempt we use one male as source of sperm. We therefore ask that you provide us with three males, which means that we can run three sets of IVF to yield enough embryos, for the same price.
Deliveries
Our routine is to freeze at least 300-350 embryos per strain. For each batch, we always keep some embryos to perform one round of freeze-thaw-retrieval as evaluation (quality control). Based on your order, some embryos can also be implanted into a pseudo pregnant female to produce offspring as an extra quality control evaluation.
When the offspring is two to three weeks old, we will contact you and provide tail biopsy for genotype analysis. If you do not need tail biopsies or the offspring, please inform us in advance. We are unable to guarantee space after the offspring have reached four weeks of age.
Please note that no animals can be returned to their original place after transport!
Rederivation (decontamination)
This service, which is also called cleansing or embryo transfer, is provided for all researchers who want to import infected animals, or transfer animals from PKL3/5 to PKL4.
How is it done?
Through hormonal treatment and mating in an isolated lab we will provide you with clean offspring that allows you to transfer the animals to the clean sections of PKL5 or PKL4. In the decontamination protocol the females are super ovulated and after natural mating the oocytes are extracted. The collected oocytes are washed in several steps and implanted into a carrier female (pseudo pregnant female).
To produce clean embryos and subsequently clean offspring we need two to three males that are at least six weeks old. The male should be guaranteed fertile (test mated). If the male has not been previously test-mated, we will perform this procedure at an extra charge. If you plan to use wild type females (e.g. C57BL/6J), we will order them for you according to your order request. If you prefer to use your own strain specific females, you should provide us with three to four weeks old female animals (or as young as possible). For the decontamination process we need four to six females.
When the offspring is two to three weeks old, we will contact you and provide tail biopsy for genotype analysis. If you do not need tail biopsies or the offspring, please inform us in advance. We are unable to guarantee space after the offspring have reached four weeks of age.
Deliveries
The aim of rederivation is to get at least one mating couple. If necessary, up to three attempts will be performed for the same price. Under normal circumstances three attempts is sufficient. When the offspring is two to three weeks, we will contact you and provide tail biopsy for genotype analysis. If you do not need tail biopsies, please inform us in advance. We are unable to guarantee space after the offspring have reached four weeks of age.
Please note that no animals can be returned to their original place after transport!