Patent ID: 8552254

Claim:
A method of maintaining genetic stability of an inbred rodent strain, comprising in the order of: (a) establishing a foundation colony of an inbred rodent strain, wherein the foundation colony comprises only brother-sister pairs, parent-offspring pairs or brother-sister pairs and parent-offspring pairs from which all subsequent rodents of the strain are derived; (b) selecting at least one pedigreed inbred breeding pair as a founder pair from the foundation colony, wherein the founder pair is a brother-sister pair or a parent-offspring pair from which all subsequent rodents of the strain are derived; (c) breeding the founder pair selected in step (b) to produce at least one female offspring; (d) obtaining pre-gametes and/or gametes from the male of founder pair selected in (b); (e) cryopreserving pre-gametes and/or gametes obtained in step (d), thereby producing a stock of cryopreserved pre-gametes and/or cryopreserved gametes; (f) maintaining the stock of cryopreserved pre-gametes and/or gametes produced in step (e); (g) obtaining rodent embryos by breeding the at least one female offspring obtained in step (c) with the cryopreserved pre-gametes or gametes of step (f) and cryopreserving the rodent embryos, thereby obtaining cryopreserved rodent embryos; (h) producing at least one live female rodent from cryopreserved rodent embryos produced in step (g); (i) re-establishing the foundation colony by breeding the at least one female live rodent produced in step (h) using the stock of cryopreserved pre-gametes and/or cryopreserved gametes of step (f) to produce offspring; (j) replenishing the foundation colony by repeating steps (h) to (i) at intervals of 1 to 20 generations and thus, inhibiting the accumulation of genetic changes, thereby maintaining genetic stability of the inbred rodent strain.