Genetic Monitoring Guidelines from Charles River Laboratories
Before using inbred mouse lines in experiments, Charles River Laboratories recommends performing routine genetic monitoring to identify divergence from stock colonies as well as misbreeding events. Closed colonies inevitably diverge from each other, so a colony of C57BL/6 bred in-house for 10 years will not be identical to a C57BL/6 from the source vendor. Minimize the rate of divergence by periodically supplementing breeding colonies with fresh stock animals. Another divergence risk is genetic contamination from human error or biosecurity breaks. Genetic monitoring identifies issues before research is compromised. To avoid the cost of assaying all animals in a facility, researchers usually test a subset of animals representative of the entire population.
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