Pediatrics Facility

The Pediatrics Facility opened in 2005 and houses various species including mice and rats. All mice and rats enter the Pediatrics Facility from other facilities on campus, after completion of Emory’s quarantine program, or from approved vendors. There is dedicated husbandry staff for the Pediatrics Facility. All rodents are housed in microisolator cages on static racks or ventilated racks and the water is acidified. Currently, there are 6 BSL1 mouse rooms, 1 BSL2 mouse room and 1 BSL1 rat room.

The health status of our rodent colonies is evaluated quarterly by serology and parasitology. The serology samples are outsourced to commercial laboratories and the parasitology is run in house. In all mouse rooms up to 4 sentinel cages, containing two 4-6 week old CF1 mice, are placed on every rack and replaced quarterly. Each sentinel cage monitors 35-70 mouse cages. Three times a week, sentinel mice are placed directly into the soiled cage of a colony mouse. At the end of 3 months, sentinels wait 6 weeks for seroconversion, and are then euthanized for health monitoring. All mouse colonies are tested for endo-parasites, ecto-parasites, and the following pathogens during the first three quarters: MPV, Sendai, PVM, MHV, MVM, GDVII, Reo-3, M. pulmonis, EDIM, MCMV and MNV. Every 6 months ectromelia is added and during our last quarter of testing we also include the following: LCMV, K, Polyoma and Mouse Adenovirus. In all rat rooms, a sentinel cage with two 6-8 week old Sprague Dawleys is placed on every rack and replaced yearly. Each sentinel cage monitors up to 56 rat cages. Three times a week, sentinel rats are placed directly into the soiled cage of a colony rat. All rat colonies are tested for Endo-parasites and the following pathogens during each quarter: Sendai, PVM, SDAV, KRV, H-1, Reo-3, M .pulmonis, and RPV.

Emory University colonies are not regularly screened, but are believed to be free of the following pathogens: Mouse thymic virus (MTV, MTLV), Lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus (LDEV), Bordetella bronchiseptica, CAR Bacillus, Hantavirus, Corynebacterium kutscheri, Streptobacillus moniliformis, Salmonella, Citrobacter rodentium, and pathogenic streptococci.

Mice from Emory University are potententially colonized with the following organisms: Helicobacter hepaticus, H. muridarum, H. bilis, Pasteurella pneumotropica, Proteus spp, staphylococci, and fecal coliforms and enterococci.  Effective 4/30/2007, all DAR-managed mouse colonies are now declared to have high level epizootic murine norovirus (MNV) and low level enzootic mouse parvovirus (MPV) infections.

While we have no reason to believe that there are other pathogens in this facility, we recommend that all shipments from Emory University be isolated from other rodent colonies until confirmatory health assessments can be done. Additional testing can be performed prior to shipment upon request of the receiving institution. All questions can be answered by the Animal Health Quality Assurance Manager in the Division of Animal Resources at 404-712-9902.