Health Monitoring Program
Facility Control and Maintenance
Mice intended for export are housed in a strictly controlled barrier facility with limited access granted only to trained laboratory and animal care personnel via key card access. Personal protective equipment, including disposable gowns, shoe covers, gloves, hair bonnets, and masks, is required for entry into the facility. Animal care personnel are dedicated to the facility and/or room to ensure strict adherence to facility protocol. Mice are housed in positive-pressure, individually ventilated cages/units (IVC/U) that are changed every 1-2 weeks. Corncob bedding and paper nest enrichment are provided to the mice, and irradiated feed is supplied. Prior to use, all caging, bedding, and enrichment are autoclaved to ensure sterility. An Edstrom automatic watering system supplies processed water (reverse osmosis, chlorinated). Once mice leave the barrier facility, they cannot return.
Health Status
The mice housed in the GemPharmatech facility maintain a specified and opportunistic pathogen-free (SOPF) status or germ-free (GF) status. The health status of the animals is meticulously monitored through various methods, including the use of sentinel mice, random sampling within the colony, and exhaust air dusts (EAD) testing. Detailed information regarding these monitoring procedures is described below.
Sentinel mice: The health status of all colonies is monitored on a quarterly basis using sentinel mice. These sentinel cages contain two female mice aged between 4-6 weeks. Biweekly, the sentinel mice are exposed to soiled bedding collected from cages within their respective racks. The soiled bedding samples are pooled from multiple cages. Each rack unit contains 70 or 80 cages, and the sentinel mice are housed two per cage on each side of the rack unit. The results of these tests are reported as the number of positive samples out of the total number of testing samples. The health monitoring program includes necropsy examinations, detection of parasites, bacteria, and viruses.
Colony random sample testing: To detect any potential microbiological issues within the colony, live mice, feces, or oral swabs are randomly sampled from immunodeficient mice and large colonies such as C57BL/6, BALB/c ,NCG mice, etc.
EAD testing: Monthly, exhaust air dust is collected for pathogen detection through EAD testing.
Importing Animals
For imported mice, only animals that are specific pathogen-free (SPF) are accepted. However, they must undergo rederivation and testing before being released into the barrier facility. These animals are initially quarantined in isolators, and samples such as hair, feces, or serology samples are collected and submitted to the GemPharmatech microbial testing center for analysis. Only after passing microbial tests can the animals be transported to the breeding rooms via cesarean section or embryo transfer.
| VIRUSES | Method |
| Mouse Thymic Virus (MTV) | PCR |
| Ectromelia virus (Ect) | PCR |
| Mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) | ELISA |
| Sendai virus (SV) | ELISA |
| Pneumonia virus of mice (PVM) | ELISA |
| Reovirus-3 (Reo-3) | ELISA/PCR |
| Minute virus of mice (MVM) | PCR |
| Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV) | ELISA/PCR |
| Hantavirus (HV) | ELISA/PCR |
| Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) | ELISA/PCR |
| Mouse Adenovirus FL (MAD1) | PCR |
| Mouse Adenovirus K87 (MAD 2) | PCR |
| Polyoma Virus (POLY) | ELISA/PCR |
| Mouse Parvovirus (MPV) | PCR |
| Mouse Cytomegalovirus (MCMV) | PCR |
| Murine Norovirus (MNV) | PCR |
| Epizootic Diarrhea of Infant Mice (EDIM) | PCR |
| K virus | PCR |
| LDH elevating virus (LDV) | PCR |
| Murine chapparvovirus (MKPV) | PCR |
| BACTERIA & MYCOPLASMA | Method |
| Proteus mirabilis | Culture |
| Pasteurella multocida | Culture |
| Klebsiella oxytoca | Culture |
| Filobacterium rodentium (CAR Bacillus) | PCR |
| Helicobacter spp. (e.g. H. hepaticus, H. bilis, H. muridarum, H. rodentium) | PCR |
| Pneumocystis spp. | PCR |
| Citrobacter rodentium | Culture |
| Bordetella Bronchus | Culture |
| Mycoplasma spp. | PCR |
| Salmonella spp. | Culture |
| Mycoplasma?pulmonis | PCR |
| Corynebacterium?kutscheri | Culture |
| Tyzzer's?organism | PCR |
| Pasteurella?pneumotropica (Rodentibacter pneumotropicus, Rodentibacter heylii) | Culture |
| Klebsiella pneumoniae | Culture |
| Staphylococcus aureus | Culture |
| Pseudomonas aeruginosa | Culture |
| Pathogenic dermal fungi | PCR |
| Streptobacillus moniliformis | Culture |
| Corynebacterium?bovis | PCR |
| PARASITES & PROTOZOA | Method |
| Eimeria spp. | Micro |
| Entamoeba | Micro |
| Endoparasites (tapeworms, pinworms, and other helminths) | Micro |
| Flagellatas (e.g. Giardia muris, Spironucleus muris, etc.) | Micro |
| Toxoplasma gondii | PCR |
| Ectoparasites, e.g., fleas, mites, and lice | Micro |
| Ciliata | Micro |
| Encephalitozoon?cunicul | PCR |
| OTHER | Method |
| Pinworms | PCR |
| Furmites | PCR |
Additionally, GemPharmatech partners with several respected institutions and organizations to breed and house mice. For information on the health monitoring and testing practices of these facilities, please contact us.