Standardized Mouse Phenotyping

The mouse phenotyping for the IMPC is carried out at several mouse facilities around the world. Standardized approaches have been developed to ensure consistency and data quality across the centres.

The phenotyping is organized into comprehensive high throughput pipelines which assess mouse biology at different life stages from embryo to aged adults. A broad range of phenotyping tests are carried out to investigate fertility, viability, neuromuscular, sensory, neurological, cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory and haematological aspects of the mutant animals. Constant effort goes into reviewing the existing protocols and developing new ones to ensure relevant information is captured. Recently the scope of the phenotyping has been expanded to investigate ageing as well.Where possible homozygous mutant mice on an isogenic C57BL/6N are phenotyped.  When the homozygous knockout is lethal, heterozygotes are used instead. All IMPC phenotyping protocols are collated and made publicly available on the International Mouse Phenotyping Resource of Standardised Screens (IMPReSS) page.