Doxycycline Administration to Mice

Overview
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Procedure
Doxycycline Administration in Water:

Make 100x doxycycline stock solution of 20 mg/ml of Doxycycline (Sigma) with water. (It takes about 2 minutes of shaking to get this into solution). This solution can be frozen in 5 ml aliquots, wrapped in tin foil.

In mouse facility, add the 100X stock to water bottles for final concentration 200 mcg/ml. It is preferable to use amber water bottles since tetracycline and doxycycline are light sensitive (we use Wheaton "900" RediPak Amber GlassPackers with Caps, 250 ml, Fisher cat # 02-911-4)

It is not necessary to put sucrose in the water. For most purposes, this dose of doxycycline in great excess of what is required to suppress gene expression in peripheral organs (higher doses may be needed to reach the brain). Therefore we add fresh doxycycline-containing water weekly, but more frequent water changes are unnecessary.

For IP injection of Doxycycline:

10 mcg of Doxycycline in 0.5 cc of water can be given as a single IP injection to a 30 gram mouse. This is only necessary for very sick mice.

For administration of Doxycycline in food pellets:

Doxycycline in food pellets are custom made by Bio-Serv (908-996-2155) One 8th Street, Frenchtown, NJ 08825. These pellets are made with 200 mg of doxycycline per kg of regular mouse chow and the addition of green food coloring. You need to FedEx the doxycycline to Bio-Serv, and radiation sterilization of food pellets is needed if you have a "barrier" animal facility. When placing order, refer to catalog # "S3431, Gladstone", for the exact specification of the chow. We order 100 kg at a time ($1366) and this supplies us for 3-5 months.

We have found that doxycycline administration in the food requires less work than doxycycline in the water, since the animal care staff can replenish the food. We find that the green food coloring is critical for keeping track of which mice are on doxycyline.

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