CONSTRUCTION OF A TARGETED RHESUS MACAQUE MICROARRAY

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) offers unique opportunities for biomedical research due to similarities to humans in both anatomy and physiology. Vaccine development for HIV and possible bioterrorist agents such as small pox and anthrax require the use of nonhuman primates (NHPs). The rhesus macaque is also the animal of choice for studies of reproductive biology and higher cortical functions. Important studies in these areas are currently impeded by the lack of a critical tool - expression microarrays. The objective of this proposal is to create rhesus macaque expression microarrays by targeted polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of monkey homologs of human genes using information from the human genome project. To maximize scientific and biomedical impact, this targeted approach will be prioritized in three ordered stages. The first stage will be to produce a focused array of 1,800 genes chosen as highest priority by the NHP community. The second stage will be to identify and amplify those monkey genes for which human probes work poorly. The third stage will be to amplify the remaining rhesus macaque genes. Genes already cloned from rhesus cDNA libraries will be excluded from this project. Each stage will have four steps: (1) identify the genes; (2) design primer pairs for targeted amplification of those genes; (3) amplify, subclone, sequence, annotate, and deposit those gene clones; and (4) construct targeted rhesus expression microarrays. This project will produce a resource of major importance to the NHP community.