for assistance call: 1-888-673-3444
 
Weather Advisory
 February 16, 2025
Weather impacts shipments, particularly of live animals. Please check with your selected courier to learn how their shipping methods (e.g. air or ground shipment) and temperature restictions may impact your orders. While we recognize that shipping delays are frustrating, when it comes to live animal shipments, the safety and welfare of the animals comes first. 
In Need of a New Rat Model?
 February 16, 2025
Need a new rat model?  The RRRC in conjunction with the MU Animal Modeling Core (AMC) can assist with the generation of transgenic rats, create knock-out and knock-in rats using CRISPR/Cas9 technology and genetically manipulate rat embryonic stem cells to make chimeric animals.  Contact us to discuss your rat model needs and how we can help. 
Laboratory Animal Genetic Reporting (LAG-R) Guidelines Published
 July 07, 2024
The LAG-R framework (Laboratory Animal Genetic Reporting) is a set of guidelines to support more complete documentation of the genetic make-up of animals of all species that are used in research, with the aim of bolstering reproducibility, reliability, and overall scientific rigor. See Nature Communications (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49439-y).
GRCr8: A new rat reference assembly is now available.
 February 05, 2024
GRCr8 (GenBank NCBI # GCA_036323735.1) is the latest version of the rat reference genome assembly. See the Genome Reference Consortium (GRC) blog for more details.
Microbiota Characterization
The gut microbiota (GM) is now recognized as a key factor in health and disease.  Differences in the composition of the gut microbiota of research animals may contribute to altered phenotypes or poor reproducibility of animal-based studies.  Culture-independent techniques such as next-generation sequencing (NGS) allow in-depth characterization of the GM. The RRRC now offers a full line of NGS-related services including fecal DNA extraction, 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and informatics analysis to researchers using rat models.  For more information, please see here or contact us.

16S rRNA gene sequencing requires submission of 1-2 fresh fecal samples per rat.  Samples should be frozen immediately following collection and shipped frozen.  You will receive a detailed report containing the relative abundance of all detected microbes at each taxonomic level, 2D and 3D principal component analyses, rarefaction curves, and the associated raw data.  For more information, please see here.

Services Offered Non-Profit/
Academic Fees
For Profit Fees
Microbiota Characterization Contact for Quote