Neonatal Mouse Ovary Isolation: A Surgical Procedure to Harvest Pair of Ovaries from Neonatal Mouse Model

Begin by transferring 1 milliliter of dissection medium into each sterile glass embryo dish. After culling the 0 to 5 postnatal day old pups, grasp the skin covering the abdominal wall with fine forceps and incise the skin and body wall. Pull open this large incision, exposing the abdomen. The bladder is usually engorged at this stage and can be punctured to make dissection easier.

Using watchmaker forceps, move aside the guts. Then, on either side, follow the uterine horns from the bladder up to the kidney. The ovary is a cloud-like structure located just below the kidney at the top of the uterus. Grasp the ovary gently and, using scissors, cut it free from the uterus. After dissecting out both ovaries, transfer them to dishes filled with warm dissection medium.

Use a dissection microscope with a stage heated at 37 degrees Celsius to dissect the ovaries. Using insulin needles, trim away the bursa sac and any excess material including the fallopian tube until only the ovary remains. Then, transfer each ovary into the well of a prepared plate using a curved pipette.