Taconic Biosciences Announces ExpressMODEL® CRISPR Platform

This platform leverages informed founder selection to ensure high quality models and accelerate breeding to cohort delivery.

Taconic Biosciences, a global leader in providing animal models for drug discovery, presents the ExpressMODEL® CRISPR platform, an innovative workflow to reduce the effort, cost, and timeline to study results. This workflow saves at least three months during the generation of a homozygous cohort by applying robust molecular characterization of gene-edited founder mice and utilizing in vitro fertilization (IVF) expansion.

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing has been used in a variety of model generation projects over the last 10 years. However, like all gene modification techniques, this process is not without its potential drawbacks and induced mutations. Additionally, most model generation projects involve assessing off-targets after germline transmission, however, that can lead to issues inheriting the correct genetic modification. With a data-driven approach like the one used in the ExpressMODEL CRISPR platform, off-target risks are assessed early via next-generation sequencing (NGS) to provide a complete assessment of genetic mosaicism in founder mice and predict accurate germline transmission.

This process not only enables the project to move forward with the most suitable founder mice for downstream breeding, but also provides scalability of the number of heterozygous age-matched, off-target analyzed mice, and a defined health standard. "The ExpressMODEL CRISPR platform builds on an already robust portfolio of ExpressMODEL workflows to increase speed to cohort generation. By saving 3 months on model generation, researchers can start their studies sooner all while relying on quality custom models from Taconic", says Dr. John Couse, vice president of scientific services.

The ExpressMODEL® CRISPR platform offers multiple benefits:

• Program security to assess the quality of the genetic modification early and circumvent the risk of inheriting undesired mutations
• Earlier results enable scaling of heterozygous mouse production and eliminate the need for an expansion breeding step, saving at least three months in the overall timeline
• Predictable timelines with the use of IVF that affords production of age-matched mice and synchronized breeding to accelerate breeding to cohort
• Multiple health standard options available to meet specific research needs and facilitate breeding in barrier environments

Visit the ExpressMODEL® CRISPR platform page to learn more. Or call 1-888-TACONIC (888-822-6642) in the US, +45 70 23 04 05 in Europe, or email info@taconic.com