Speed Congenics

Save up to a year and a half of breeding by screening the background genetics of your research animals and selecting those with the highest percentage of the desired background. Our speed congenics program, Marker-Assisted Accelerated Backcrossing (MAX-BAX®), can deliver a fully congenic colony in only 15 months.

Traditional Backcross Speed Backcross
Generation Recipient Genome Generation Recipient Genome
F1 50.00% F1 ~50.00%
N2 75.00% N2 ~80.00%
N3 87.50% N3 ~94.00%
N4 93.75% N4 ~99.00%
N5 96.88% N5 ~100.00%
N6 98.44%    
N7 99.22%    
N8 99.61%    
N9 99.81%    
N10 99.90%    

  • Custom-designed mouse 384 SNP panel for all donor and recipient strains
  • SNP spacing at 7 Mbp intervals
  • Genome-wide microsatellite panels for rats, mice and zebrafish
  • Microsatellite spacing at 15 cM intervals
  • All autosomes and the X chromosome covered in all panels
  • Y-chromosome markers tested if needed

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Contract Breeding

Charles River can fully manage genetically engineered colonies. Simply submit a colony for speed congenics and Charles River will return fully congenic animals in about 15 months.

Rederivation Services

During the speed congenics process, rederivation can eliminate unwanted pathogens from the colony.