Research Component 4:
Microarray, Bioinformatics, and Biostatistics Core
Director: John Belknap
Co-Director: Shannon McWeeney, Christina Harrington, Robert Hitzemann
Core component 4 will be responsible for carrying out all QTL (quantitative trait locus) and other genetic analyses, microarray analyses and QTL/microarray integration, including the informatics, computational and statistical support necessary for this work.
The largest change in the renewal compared to our present Component is the much increased support needed for the microarray gene expression studies and their integration with QTL analyses.
Microarrays allow the screening of gene expression of tens of thousands of genes for their relationship to key genotypes known to differ for alcohol-relevant traits. QTL analyses allow the dissection of continuous variation of a trait into component genetic loci, and to map them to chromosomal regions.
The integration of QTL/microarray efforts relies to a considerable extent on QTL analyses of gene expression levels of particular genes (eQTLs) and their relationship to QTL analyses of alcohol-related traits (aQTLs) assessed in the same population of mice. This can greatly facilitate progress toward identifying the genes underlying alcohol-trait related QTLs. We are also interested in identifying genes whose regulation is altered by alcohol exposure (an environmental treatment) regardless of genotype, as well as the interaction with genotype.
This Component will construct a centralized PARC database (PARCDB) to integrate the above-mentioned functions as well as to assist the Molecular Genetics Support Core (Component 3) in efforts to identify the genes underlying alcohol-related QTLs and both the Animal and Dependence Core (Component 2) and Core Component 3 in data management.
In addition, our local PARC data sets focused on phenotype and summary QTL data will be updated, expanded and deposited in public databases such as webQTL and the Jackson Laboratory Mouse Phenome Project, much as we have done in the past. Priorities for Component activities will be set by the Executive Committee overseeing the entire Center. Core Component 4 will be active in all years of requested support, and is important for all components in the Center and essential for Components 5 and 7.
by Mark Rutledge-Gorman
You are visitor #
Health Care Services | Research Programs | Academic & Students | Regional Outreach
OHSU Notice of Privacy Practices
© 2001-2007, Oregon Health & Science University