I need to collect blood from mice. Can I use heparinized capillary for retroorbital collection and then put blood in EDTA coated tubes? Is it better to use the same anticoagulant or it doesn't matter?
I'm a graduate student and I also use mouse model in my research. Although I have never used that combination before I would say it will work, however to be able to use it or not, it mostly depends on your downstream application for the blood...
What I mean is, the blood will not clot if you use the heparinized capillary and EDTA coated tubes, but if your downstream application is, for example, RNA extraction from blood, then you shouldn't use the heparin capillary as heparin interferes.
So what I would check is do heparin or EDTA interfere with whatever you plan to do with the blood afterwards.