EMMA--mouse mutant resources for the international scientific community

Abstract

The laboratory mouse is the premier animal model for studying human disease and thousands of mutants have been identified or produced, most recently through gene-specific mutagenesis approaches. High throughput strategies by the International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC) are producing mutants for all protein coding genes. Generating a knock-out line involves huge monetary and time costs so capture of both the data describing each mutant alongside archiving of the line for distribution to future researchers is critical. The European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA) is a leading international network infrastructure for archiving and worldwide provision of mouse mutant strains. It operates in collaboration with the other members of the Federation of International Mouse Resources (FIMRe), EMMA being the European component. Additionally EMMA is one of four repositories involved in the IKMC, and therefore the current figure of 1700 archived lines will rise markedly. The EMMA database gathers and curates extensive data on each line and presents it through a user-friendly website. A BioMart interface allows advanced searching including integrated querying with other resources e.g. Ensembl. Other resources are able to display EMMA data by accessing our Distributed Annotation System server. EMMA database access is publicly available at http://www.emmanet.org.

Reduced Glutathione Enhances Fertility of Frozen/Thawed C57BL/6 Mouse Sperm after Exposure to Methyl-Beta-Cyclodextrin1

“…Genetic resource banks archive and distribute these mice to the scientific community [2,31,32]. Sperm cryopreservation allows genetic resource banks to easily collect and store a large number of germplasm samples; however, frozen/thawed mouse sperm, especially those derived from C57BL/6 mouse strain, exhibit a marked reduction in fertility, which decreases the number of embryos obtained through conventional IVF [6].…”

Generation of Mouse Mutants by Genotype-Driven Mutagenesis

“…To reduce the risk of a hygienic contamination of the animal facility and to make new animal models available to the scientific community, central repositories have been founded. The task of the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA) and other mouse resources is the collection, archiving and distribution of valuable mouse mutants [156]. The animal models are available as frozen embryos or germ cells and can be ordered as mice in SPF (Specific Pathogen Free) quality.…”

Germline transgenesis in rodents by pronuclear microinjection of Sleeping Beauty transposons

“…Both species offer unique advantages for use in biomedical research such as their versatility and the abundance of available resources, including mutant archives produced by the large-scale N'-ethyl-N'-nitrosourea (ENU) mutagenesis screens, the International Knockout Mouse Consortium (IKMC), the International Gene Trap Consortium (IGTC) and the European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA) [1][2][3][4][5][6] . A large number of inbred strains have been successfully generated for mice and rats; these genetically standardized and phenotypically characterized strains are valuable and well documented tools available for the scientific community.…”