Patent ID: 7592501

Claim:
A method of maintaining genetic stability of an inbred rodent strain, comprising: (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) maintaining a pedigree-tracked stock of cryopreserved rodent embryos, wherein the cyropreserved rodent embryos are obtained from a brother-sister pair or a parent-offspring pair from the foundation colony established in step (a); (c) producing live rodents from cryopreserved rodent embryos of the pedigree-tracked stock obtained in step (b); (d) selecting a pedigreed inbred breeding pair from the live rodents obtained in step (c) to be used as a new founder pair to re-establish the foundation colony, wherein the inbred breeding pair is a brother sister pair or a parent-offspring pair from which all subsequent rodents of the strain are derived; (e) breeding the new founder pair obtained in step (d) to produce offspring and thereby re- establish the foundation colony 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; and (f) replenishing the foundation colony by repeating steps (c) to (e) at intervals of 1 to 20 generations and thus, inhibiting the accumulation of genotypic changes, thereby maintaining genetic stability of the inbred rodent strain.