Tulane National Primate Research Center

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PROJECT SUMMARY Rhesus macaques are not only the most commonly used nonhuman primate species for biomedical research generally, but also specifically for aging. Rhesus share similar life span metrics with humans and have been used to study numerous facets of aging including cognition, behavior, physiology, and reproductive and immune senescence. Many studies on aging show inter-individual variability with neuro-degenerative disease and cognitive decline perhaps the most obvious. Many of these features of aging are heritable and the variability between individuals is derived, in part, from differences at the genomic level. Any study of aging with a genetic or epigenetic basis will benefit from increased genomic information. While genome-wide association studies (GWAS), particularly on aging phenotypes, are largely impracticable in rhesus macaques, associations of a priori defined genetic variants, such as studies aimed at confirming human GWAS results, may be possible. Moreover, understanding how and where subjects are not genetically different can be as important in identifying sources of variation. Lastly, studies focused on the epigenetics of aging and somatic mutation necessarily rely upon genomic information. It is possible to offer insight into differences between animals by providing whole genome information on animals in the Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) NIA Aged Rhesus Macaque Colony. This, in turn, would provide researchers using the colony a genomic context in which to ground their studies. It also opens new opportunities for studying molecular aging in nonhuman primate models. At the completion of the proposed project, we will have generated complete whole genome data on the entirety of the NIA-supported colony of aging rhesus macaques at the TNPRC. We will make this information available to the research community in the NIH Short Read Archive (SRA) and at the mGAP web portal. These results will immediately allow any member of the research community with an interest in the NIA-supported aging colony to incorporate genetics into their studies. It will also facilitate pilot studies at the TNPRC to recapitulate and validate previous human studies on aging phenotypes, efforts that can be expanded to other NPRCs with aging colonies.