Gene Expression Arrays for the Laboratory Opossum

灰色短尾负鼠Monodelphis home tica(又称“实验室负鼠”)是 世界上最主要的实验室培育的有袋类研究动物，用于广泛的研究 与人类发育、生理学和疾病易感性相关的一系列主题。在过去的三年里 多年来，在建立基因组资源库方面取得了很好的进展，使新的 在比较基因组学、基因和基因组结构领域与该物种进行研究的途径，以及 对影响发育和生理表型的基因的检测和定位。是这样的 资源包括：一个排列齐全的公开可用的细菌人工染色体(BAG)文库；一个 正在扩展的连锁图谱；以及即将完成的全基因组序列。相比之下，现代的工具 功能性基因组分析(基因调控和表达)在这方面和其他方面都严重缺乏。 有袋类物种。鉴于目前基础生物学和与健康相关的研究的多样性 与家畜分枝杆菌一起进行的研究，迫切需要能够用来研究 在正常和异常生理和发育状态下的基因表达，以及在表现出 对疾病条件和发育异常的易感性不同。的根本目标是 本申请中提出的研究是构建具有广泛代表性的一系列表达 序列(CDNA)文库和相应的高密度基因表达阵列，可用于 在各种基础和面向生物医学的研究应用中使用M。 家养动物和其他有袋动物物种。拟议的研究还将建立一个表达序列 Tag(EST)数据库，并利用该数据库构建M。 家蝇，将揭示有袋类基因组在组织和基因含量上的差异 以及真兽类哺乳动物，特别是人类基因组。拟议研究的一个明确目标是 使这些cDNA文库、基因阵列和数据库资源完全可供研究使用 社区。

The gray, short-tailed opossum, Monodelphis domestica (also known as the "laboratory opossum"), is the predominant laboratory-bred research marsupial in the world and is used in investigations that span a broad range of topics relevant to human development, physiology, and disease susceptibility. In the past three years, excellent progress has been made In establishing a genomic resource base that is enabling new avenues of inquiry with this species in the areas of comparative genomics, gene and genome structure, and the detection and mapping of genes that influence developmental and physiologic phenotypes. Such resources include: a fully arrayed, publicly available bacterial artificial chromosome (BAG) library; an expanding linkage map; and a soon-to-be-completed full-genome sequence. In contrast, tools for modern functional genomic analysis (gene regulation and expression) are sorely lacking for this and all other marsupial species. Given the diversity of basic biological and health-related research currently being conducted with M. domestica, there is a critical need for tools that can be used for investigating variation in gene expression in normal and abnormal physiologic and developmental states, and in animals that exhibit varying susceptibilities to disease conditions and developmental anomalies. The fundamental objective of the studies proposed in this application is the construction of a broadly representative series of expressed sequence (cDNA) libraries and corresponding high-density gene expression arrays that can be utilized for gene expression profiling in a diversity of basic and biomedically oriented research applications using M. domestica and other marsupial species. The proposed research will also establish an expressed sequence tag (EST) database and use this database for the construction of an expressed sequence map of M. domestica that will reveal differences in organization and gene content between the genomes of marsupial and eutherian mammals, particularly the human genome. An explicit objective of the proposed study is to make these cDNA libraries, gene arrays, and database resources fully accessible to the research community.