CRYOPRESERVATION OF EMBRYOS APPLIED TO TH E PROTECTION OF GENETIC-RESOURCES IN THE RABBIT

The establishment of a cryobank of gametes and embryos would be useful for maintaining animal genetic diversity and protecting populations t hreatened with extinction. We have begun to establish such a bank usin g the rabbit as a model, a species which is of interest from both zoot echnical and biomedical points of view. We first defined the technical parameters for establishing an embryo bank using the INRA 'hyper-fecu nd' line. Subsequently we have begun to apply these techniques of cryo preservation to the following populations : a strain with a large popu lation size and high zootechnical value, INRA A-1077, selected over 18 generations for litter size and maintained as a closed breeding group ; a breed with reduced population size, the 'Brun-marron de Lorraine'; a line of biomedical interest consisting of 3 families selected for a llotypic variation in genes coding for the immunoglobin heavy chain; a nd a mutant strain referred to as the 'jumping Alfort' rabbit. This re search should allow us to define the scientific and economic choices i mportant in the extension of this work to other rabbit populations, pa rticularly transgenic lines and clones.