Surgical Transplantation of Mouse Neural Stem Cells into the Spinal Cords of Mice Infected with Neurotropic Mouse Hepatitis Virus

Carbajal, Kevin S.; Weinger, Jason G.; Whitman, Lucia M.; Schaumburg, Chris S.; Lane, Thomas E.

To maximize efficiency, a transplant team manning the four different stations (mouse prep, laminectomy, injection, and sutures) is desirable. Furthermore, the timing for each procedure should be optimized to minimize the time the cells are waiting on ice. For example, we transplant our mice in groups of four (the number of doses in each load of the syringe), the person injecting the cells starts loading the syringe after the third mouse has been laminectomized and the person preparing the mice should anesthetize the following group after the second mouse of the previous group has been laminectomized. In this manner, we can transplant cells (or control media) into 40 mice in about 3 hrs even though each mouse will take approximately 30-40 min.