Tail Vein Blood Collection
Tail Vein Blood Collection - Related Videos
05:12
Repeated Blood Collection from Tail Vein of Non-Anesthetized Rats with a Vacuum Blood Collection System
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Cited by 25 •
2017
Here, we describe a simple tail vein blood sampling method in non-anesthetized rats using a vacuum extraction tube system. This method reduces the risk of direct exposure to blood and simplifies taking multiple samples from a single venipuncture.
07:11
Sampling Blood from the Lateral Tail Vein of the Rat
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Cited by 82 •
2015
Blood samples are useful for assessing biomarkers of physiological states or disease in vivo. Here we describe the methodology to sample blood from the lateral tail vein in the rat. This method provides rapid samples with minimal pain and invasiveness.
07:42
Modified Blood Collection from Tail Veins of Non-anesthetized Mice with a Vacuum Blood Collection System and Eyeglass Magnifier
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Cited by 7 •
2019
This study reports blood sampling from tail vein in mice using a vacuum extraction tube system with eyeglass magnifier. Our method is easy to practice and could be used for repeat blood sampling in mice.
05:01
Facial Vein Venipuncture for Murine Blood Collection
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2025
Here, we present a protocol for an optimized blood collection technique in murine subjects through facial vein venipuncture using a lancet. We use this technique alongside flow cytometric assessment to characterize cellular phenotypes of transgenic, congenic, and reporter strains. It is also suitable for serum cytokine analysis and diabetes studies.
02:51
A Mouse Tail Snip Procedure for Peripheral Blood Collection and Plasma Isolation
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2025
In this video, we demonstrate a tail-snipping procedure in a mouse model to collect peripheral blood. The collected blood is subsequently subjected to centrifugation to separate plasma, which can be used for further experiments.
FAQs
Accessing the lateral tail veins provides a minimally invasive route that limits tissue injury compared with more disruptive sampling approaches. This makes the technique suitable for collecting blood at multiple time points from the same animal. Repeated measurements can therefore track changes in circulating markers over the course of a behavioral, disease, or treatment study.
Appropriate restraint helps maintain controlled access to the tail, while optional warming promotes vasodilation and can facilitate venous access. These conditions also matter because handling and sampling can influence stress-related variability. Keeping them consistent across animals and time points supports more reliable comparisons of blood-based measurements in neuroscience experiments.
Collected blood can be processed into plasma, serum, or cellular fractions, allowing investigators to select the material appropriate for their analysis. These fractions support measurement of circulating hormones, inflammatory mediators, metabolites, drug concentrations, and biomarkers linked to neural injury or disease. The selected fraction therefore shapes which biological information the sample can provide.
The procedure begins with appropriate restraint, followed by optional tail warming to promote vasodilation. A sterile needle or lancet is then used to access a lateral tail vein, and the blood is collected for processing. Depending on the study, the sample may subsequently be separated into plasma, serum, or cellular fractions for analysis.
This technique is useful when researchers need longitudinal blood measurements alongside behavioral or neurobiological assessments. It can support monitoring of circulating hormones, inflammatory mediators, metabolites, drug concentrations, or indicators associated with neural injury and disease. Because sampling can be repeated while limiting tissue injury, measurements can be related to changes across an experiment rather than only to a single endpoint.
Consistency in restraint, optional warming, venous access, and sampling conditions helps reduce variability associated with handling and stress. Lower procedural variability makes changes in circulating measurements easier to interpret as biological effects rather than artifacts of collection. This is particularly important when blood-based outcomes are compared with behavioral findings or other neurobiological measures over time.