TECHNOLOGY . ARTEMICE™ RAPID PRODUCTION

Advanced mouse models such as conditional gene modifications require the introduction of multiple genetic modifications into one animal. This has historically been a long and tedious process, involving large mouse numbers and taking significant time. These problems have been overcome by the ArteMice^® platform.

TaconicArtemis has reduced the time for production of conditional KO mice significantly by the introduction of:

1. an industrialized production process
2. significant improvements in vector construction speed and efficiency
3. the implementation of various C57BL/6-based mouse models into the production process
4. availability of designer ES cells containing the CreER gene switch
5. introduction of a novel process for RNAi knock down

A homocygous conditional KO on a pure, inbred C57BL/6 background can be achieved in 12 months.

In a further improvement TaconicArtemis can generate ES mice, in which all genetic modifications, including homozygous gene targeting and the CreER gene switch, are conducted at the ES cell level. ES mice are then produced by injecting the fully modified ES cells into tetraploid blastocysts. The ES mouse finally produced by this technique is fully generated from the ES cells and is immediately ready for experiments without the necessity of any further breeding steps.

We are also developing an ArteMice^® RNAi process, under which we can currently produce adult RNAi knock down mice within 4 months. The ability to do this for conditional knock down is under further development

ArteMice^® therefore provides significant time advantages for the generation of sophisticated mouse models. This is especially useful to support high quality research and lead optimization by the pharmaceutical industry and universities.