LMTK knock out mouse gave birth

I had a plan to use LMTK1A knock out primary neurons this week for confirming one of my data. I haven't learned the technique of preparing the primary neurons, so had asked Nishino san to give me some neurons. I didn't need a lot of them anyway, so it shouldn't have bothered him. We agreed, this Sunday he was going to prepare and I was going to get some of them. I decided to cancel my weekend plans and come to lab. The mouse from which the gene for the protein named LMTK is deleted is called 'LMTK knock out mouse'.

In the afternoon, nishino san caught me, and said with his difficultly in english fluency 'govinda san, knock out mouse, neuron…… gave birth …… so ….. ' and waved his hand in a gesture of 'no'. I recollected the words he spoke, re arranged them in my head, and made out the meaning he wanted to convey. The mouse, from whose babies the neurons were to be prepared on E16 (some kind of time counter, which means embryonic day 16), gave birth. So, we cannot get the primary neurons. Aaah !! Can't do the experiment. Just that moment Asada sensei passed by, and looked at us with questioning eyes, and the question was "what happened ? Why are you worried and what are you talking about which made you worry ?"
I recollected again and told her, 'we were planning to make primary neuron but the mouse gave birth' and gave a smile, to show feeling that, "I am not worried" and to mask the worries I was flooded with regarding very little time remaining for doing the experiments to get some data to publish and graduate. But, she caught my situation and gave a silent expression of 'Aaah, it shouldn't have happened'. Then to make the situation easier, I abruptly said "Lucky mouse" and continued my smile. Nishino san was still amazed to listen me speak, showing the feeling like "I am enjoying to hear you people speak" in the height of politeness the Japanese are blessed with, and at the same time having a bland face, which happens when you don’t understand at all what's happening. I looked at his face then turned to Asada sensei. Her face halted the expression of 'Aaah, it shouldn't have happened' for a while, probably she was listening to her left brain explaining to her, what I meant by "Lucky mouse". After she listened the explanation of her brain for almost 2 seconds, she smiled and said "so des nee, lucky mouse. And she gave her face now a happy expression and repeated, lucky mouse and chuckled and continued to her work.

We use mouse in our experiments. We study the processes undergoing in neurons in molecular level. So we use mouse neurons. Adult neuron don't grow with the speed required for observing the results of our experiments. So we use the "primary neurons" mostly E16. When mouse is pregnant, on th 16th day of pregnancy, the mouse fetus in the uterus has a brain where neurons are multiplying at great speeds, and are in perfect stage of maturation for observing the results of the studies we perform.

So we make the E16 primary neurons for our experiment. On the 16th day of pregnancy, the mother mouse is killed (we use the word 'sacrifice' instead to make ourselves sound a bit humane), her uterus is cut opened, the baby mice taken out, their head cut opened, and the brain put on the plate, and triturated with enzyme to get neurons, E16 primary neurons. And to our bad luck, something happened and the mother mouse we were waiting to kill and plunder her babies has given birth earlier than expected. Now those babies couldn't be used for primary neurons (or at least we thought so). So, they will live until they became adult and suitable for any other experiment.

They have no chance, they will be used for experiment, that's why we feed them with the scarce fund our lab has for research, if we feel they couldn't be used for experiment, we immediately 'sacrifice' them to save the food and/or space. So, how is that mother lucky ?

We allow the mice to mate only if we need more mice for our experiments, or we need pregnant mouse, whose babies we can plunder from womb make primary neurons. Not all mice get a chance to mate or give a birth. Mating and being mother are such a principal phenomenon of nature. Every time, I kill a mouse, my brain sets into to factions and debates, "I am doing right" and "I am doing wrong". The point I use to decide whether I am right or wrong are : is this mouse adult ? Has it got the chance to mate ? If yes, I don’t feel guilty, if no I feel guilty, but I will 'sacrifice' them whatsoever for doing an experiment which could just go wrong, or even if it went right wouldn't give me any valuable information.

This time, it happened that this mouse got the opportunity to give birth. What a thrill …. of love, it would have went through, seeing itself expand before its eyes, and feeding them from its chest to expand them further. What an experience it would have been to get flooded with the unconditional love of unimaginable magnitude. Yes, that mouse is really lucky. Of course, later they will be 'sacrificed' in desk of some experiment or no for reason at all, but that's fine because nature is anyway going to 'sacrifice' them a bit later, but she luckily gave the birth before being sacrificed.