To the editor:
I am writing in regard to the recently published article by Dawes and colleagues1 that describes using multiple ovarian transplants to rescue a transgenic line of mice. Although it is a very well-written paper, it contains some misleading information that I would like to clarify.
Since 1945, fresh ovary transfer has been used at the Jackson Laboratories for maintaining mouse strains with breeding problems2. The technique was first described by Robertson in 1940 (ref. 3). The technique described in the paper by Dawes et al.1 was published in 1957 by Stevens4 and then modified and described as we currently use it by Cunliffe-Beamer in 1983 (ref. 5).
It is well known that ovary transplantation doesn't require the use of frozen tissue, as Dawes and colleagues1 state. In fact, one of the papers6 cited by Dawes and colleagues1 describes that ovary cryopreservation was a combination of two techniques: ovary transfer and cryopreservation. Many published articles have compared results using fresh versus cryopreserved ovaries, and it is reasonable to state that a fresh organ behaves better than a previously frozen organ for surgical transplantation7,8,9,10. Therefore, the technique described is not novel.
References
Dawes, J., Liu, B., Mars, W., Michalopoulos, G. & Khillan, J. Multiple ovarian transplants to rescue a transgenic line of mice. Lab Anim. (NY) 39, 191–193 (2010).
Russell, W.L. & Hurst, J.G. Pure strain mice born to hybrid mothers following ovarian transplantation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 31, 267–273 (1945).
Robertson, G.A.G. Ovarian transplantation in the house mouse. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med. 44, 302–304 (1940).
Stevens, L.C. A modification of Robertson's technique of homoiotopic ovarian transplantation in mice. Transplant. Bull. 4, 106–107 (1957).
Cunliffe-Beamer, T.L. Biomethodology and surgical techniques. in The Mouse in Biomedical Research vol. 3 (eds. Foster, H.L., Small, J.D. & Fox, J.G.) 419–420 (Academic, New York, 1983).
Sztein, J., Sweet, H., Farley, J. & Mobraaten, L. Cryopreservation and orthotopic transplantation of mouse ovaries: new approach in gamete banking. Biol. Reprod. 58, 1071–1074 (1998).
Sztein, J.M., McGregor, T.E., Bedigian, H.J. & Mobraaten, L.E. Transgenic mouse strain rescue by frozen ovaries. Lab. Anim. Sci. 49, 99–100 (1999).
Sztein, J.M., O'Brien, M.J., Farley, J.S., Mobraaten, L.E. & Eppig, J.J. Rescue of oocytes from antral follicles of cryopreserved mouse ovaries: competence to undergo maturation, embryogenesis, and development to term. Hum. Reprod. 15, 567–571 (2000).
Shaw, J.M., Bowles, J., Koopman, P., Wood, E.C. & Trounson, A.O. Fresh and cryopreserved ovarian tissue samples from donors with lymphoma transmit the cancer to graft recipients. Hum. Reprod. 11, 1668–1673 (1996).
Harari, D., Bernard, O. & Shaw, J. Rescue of an infertile transgenic line by ovarian transplantation. Transgenics 2, 143–151 (1997).
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Sztein, J. Ovarian transplant for transgenic rescue. Lab Anim 40, 9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban0111-9a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/laban0111-9a
