Animal Feeding
1) What feed and drinking water have to be used to feed B-NDG or immune checkpoint humanized mice in general?
In breeding and production of Biocytogen B-NDG mice, dedicated feed for immunodeficient mice is used, with a protein content of 24% and a fat content of 6.3%; it is sterilized by Co60 irradiation, which warrants healthy living and breeding of the mice.
For immune checkpoint humanized mice, the feed for rodent breeding and production is used. Likewise, the sterilization method used is Co60 irradiation.
As to drinking water, Biocytogen feeds animals in isolators in high grade pathogen-free environment, and pressurized acidified water (pH: 2.5–3.0) acts as the drinking water.
If the animals are to be fed in ordinary SPF environment in any other laboratory, it is also recommended to use acidified water (pH adjusted to 2.5–3.0 with HCl) followed by autoclaving to prevent effectively it from being contaminated by Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus aureus; alternatively, direct sterilization of pure water can be used, though it’s imperative to change the drinking water and water bottles in time, and the water bottles should be replaced with new ones once every 3 days during feeding, whether the water in each bottle is drunk up or not.
2) Why do the mice including B-NDG mice, once bought, have to undergo adaptive feeding?
The so-called adaptive feeding refers to a process of feeding to make the animals adapt to the new environment prior to a study after the laboratory animals are transferred from their breeding place to laboratory animal rooms. As animals will have stress responses during transportation and transfer, immunodeficient mice have to be adaptively fed for about 7 days normally. For severe immunodeficient B-NDG mice, stress responses might be more serious; although jellies are provided in transit cases for the animals, long distance transportation will still lead to weight loss in some mice and probable stress response phenomenon in the immune system. Therefore we suggest that B-NDG mice should undergo adaptive feeding for 7–15 days before the immune system is recovered to its normal level.
Animal Ordering
1) Will the ordered animals be delivered based on age (in weeks) or body weight?
Firstly, we will select the animals at a specified age (in weeks) you ordered; then, on this basis, we will control the difference in animal weight to be less than 3 g according to growth curve of animals at the corresponding age (in weeks), so as to ensure uniformity and consistency of your study.
Animal Transportation
1) How long will it take from shipping to pickup if the mice are transferred by air?
Answer: if transferred by air, we will inform you of information such as flight number, catalog number, estimated time of arrival, and phone number of pickup counter on the date of shipping! The whole transportation duration, from shipping from production facilities to arriving at the destination city, is normally about 3 working days.
2) How shall we make sure that animal transportation is free of microbial contamination?
During the transportation, internationally accepted transit cases are used to ensure that all the animals in normal living state are free of microbial contamination.
3) Weight change during transportation
Stress responses arising from transportation will accelerate animal metabolism and excretion. Rodent weight loss due to general transportation is about 10%, but in the case of prolonged transportation duration, long distance, and high packaging density, the weight loss can be over 15%;
In addition, male subjects have generally stronger tolerance than female ones; if given abundant supply of water and feed in transit, weight gain can occur in some subjects, too. However, such weight gains will be normally below the normal weight gain range.