autoclaving specialist feed - contains doxycyline (Feb/26/2008 )

does anynone know if autoclaving mouse chow with doxycyline will destroy the dox?
I'm thinking it does, but does anyone know for sure.

V

and the answer is: yes, autoclaving does destroy the dox.
it's best to irradiate the food.

V

You can use a 0.22um filter to sterile your drug solution

yeah, but this about the feed. see, before i was using doxycycline in their drinking water (where the water was autoclaved, and the dox was filter sterilized)... but the little critters weren't getting enough of the dox.
so, according to a few people and a couple of papers, we decided that the best option was to have the antibiotic in their food. to do this, we have to have the feed supplier make a special batch of chow that contains the dox.
the problem is, in our facility, all feed is autoclaved before being allowed near the mice.
so, autoclaving the feed would destroy the dox, essentially destroying the experiment.
the best option for this kind of thing is to have the feed irradiated, which although costs extra, will not destroy the dox in the feed.

V