Vervet Research Colony as a Biomedical Resource

描述（由申请人提供）：这是一份竞争更新申请，要求支持纯种和基因型Vervet研究群体（VRC）。VRC旨在为美国国立卫生研究院资助的研究人员提供机会，对构成大部分人类健康负担的慢性、退行性和传染性疾病进行遗传知情研究。VRC为表型分型或遗传作图提供了完整的家谱，可购买供现场或非现场使用的单个猴子或猴群，并提供了过去25年来从VRC获得的广泛数据和组织库。这样的存储库不仅提供了初步的数据，而且是为新的假设生成和测试而设计的。为了鼓励最大限度地利用资源和相关的存储库，VRC教员参与了一个积极的外部科学家和项目招聘计划。四个具体目标是：1)维持病原体定义的谱系，使nlh支持的研究人员能够进行与生物医学相关性状相关的连锁和关联研究，并在受控的环境和遗传条件下使用谱系进行纵向或短期表型研究；2)提供动物供nlh支持的调查人员购买，包括现场或非现场使用和试点调查的选择；3)提供VRC作为培训兽医和其他专业人员饲养和临床护理马尾鼠的平台；4)利用综合遗传学和基因组学平台来丰富资源，以确定神经行为（如奖励敏感性）和心脏代谢（如肥胖及其后遗症）表型之间的生物学机制。目标4是该申请的研究目标，并利用加州大学洛杉矶分校和WFU研究人员的互补科学技能，提高具有重大翻译相关性的新颖多系统研究资源的价值。上述目标旨在完全满足动物模型和生物材料资源资助（P40）所需的特征。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a competing renewal requesting support for the pedigreed and genotyped Vervet Research Colony (VRC). The VRC is structured to provide NIH-funded researchers with the opportunity to conduct genetically informed studies of the chronic, degenerative, and infectious diseases comprising the majority of the human health burden. The VRC provides access to the complete pedigree for phenotyping or genetic mapping, to individual monkeys or groups that can be purchased for use on- or off-site, and to the extensive data and tissue repositories that have been derived from the VRC over the past 25 years. Such repositories not only provide preliminary data but are designed for novel hypothesis generation and testing. To encourage maximum use of the resource and associated repositories, the VRC faculty engage in a vigorous program of extramural recruitment of scientists and projects. The four specific aims are: 1) to maintain a pathogen- defined pedigree enabling NlH-supported researchers to conduct linkage and association studies in relation to biomedically relevant traits and to engage in longitudinal or short-term phenotypic investigations using the pedigree under controlled environmental and genetic conditions; 2) to provide animals for purchase by NlH-supported investigators, including options for on- or off-site use and pilot investigations; 3) to provide the VRC as a platform for training veterinarians and other professionals in the husbandry and clinical care of vervets; and 4) to enrich the resource by leveraging the integrated genetics and genomics platform to identify the biological mechanisms linking neurobehavioral (e.g., reward sensitivity) and cardiometabolic (e.g., obesity and its sequelae) phenotypes. Aim 4 is the research aim of the application and takes advantage of the complementary scientific skills of the UCLA and WFU investigators to enhance the value of the resource for novel, multi-system investigations with substantial translational relevance. The foregoing aims are designed to fulfill completely the characteristics required for an Animal Model and Biological Materials Resource Grant (P40). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): The vervet is a model of choice for neurogenetic studies, the development of cell-lines, vaccine testing, cardiometabolic investigations, and the investigation of simian immunodeficiency virus. The vervet also models many of the same diseases studied in other monkeys and is therefore an alternative biomedical species. Finally, it is anticipated that the vervet will have available the first genome wide, single nucleotide polymorphism resource available for any nonhuman primate.