Services

Complete study design and execution

• Let us help you design your study!

Respiratory exposures

• Intrapulmonary exposure systems
  • Oropharyngeal aspiration (OPA) with laryngoscope guidance
  • DSI Buxco High-Throughput Inhalation Tower Exposure Systems
    • Includes stackable units (2 towers with 14 ports each: 10 ports available for exposure, 4 ports occupied by sampling devices and sensors). Suitable for integrated plethysmography measurements (upon request and funding availability). Humidity, temperature, and particle concentration detectors are used to ensure precise delivery of aerosolized compounds.
  • Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide gas exposure
    • Hazleton H-1000 Whole-Body Exposure Chambers
  • In-tox nose-only inhalation tower system – e-cigarette aerosols, other custom exposures.

• • Bronchoscope-guided lung instillation
    • Our staff are trained and skilled in the use of the Polydiagnost Micro-Endoscopy System to facilitate single-lobe targeted instillation of substances into the lung. This is a non-surgical method that can deliver a variety of substances (drugs, bacteria, etc.) directly into the desired lobe of interest.

Schelde et al. 2023

Respiratory phenotyping

• Pulmonary function tests and breathing pattern monitoring

  • SCIREQ Flexivent or DSI FinePointe Resistance and Compliance systems are used to measure mechanical properties of conducting and terminal airways in in vivo models.
  • Whole-body plethysmography: monitoring of breathing patterns in conscious, unrestrained subjects in vivo.

• Sample and tissue collection

  • Bronchoalveolar lavage (whole lung or split lobe)
  • Nasal and middle-ear lavage
  • Differential cell counting of BAL fluid or blood

• Histology services

  • Tissue collection, fixation, and grossing for histology/IHC (whole lung or single-lobe, tracheas, nasopharynx, and others)
    • Histological services (processing, embedding, sectioning) are provided in collaboration with UNC’s Pathology Services Core)
  • Histology slide scanning (Olympus VS120 or Olympus VS200)
  • Lung histopathology (semi-quantitative or quantitative morphometry)

• Tissue clearing and imaging via light-sheet microscopy (in collaboration with UNC’s Microscopy Services Lab)
• Quantification of mucins by Western blot

Mouse line development and colony management

• The PIRC has been involved in the generation and characterization of over 25 lines of genetically modified mice (transgenic, knockout, or knock in) for a variety of clients over the years and has also conducted studies in other species (rabbit, hamster, rat, guinea pig) at investigator request.
• We maintain several genetically modified mouse colonies relevant to respiratory biology and disease, including congenic C57Bl/6N Scnn1b-Tg (βENaC-Tg), C57Bl/6N Muc5ac KO, C57Bl/6N Muc5bKO, C57Bl/6N Muc5ac/Muc5b double KO, Bpifb1 KO. This allows us to provide experimental cohorts to investigators with minimal lead time.
• The development of new lines is performed in collaboration with the UNC Animal Models Core directed by Dr. Dale Cawley. For established colonies, mouse colony management is performed in collaboration with the Rodent Breeding Mouse Colony Management Core directed by Natallia Riddick.