The Tissue and Peptide Resource Core serves four primary functions encompassing human tissue, animal tissue, Abeta peptides and data storage/distribution. The Core provides postmortem human tissue to Program investigators to facilitate individual research. The Core staff will process human autopsy tissue to meet the special needs of the investigators (e.g. fixation suitable for electron microscopy) and will select and characterize a subset of cases for distribution to all investigators so that they are working on a common set of staged cases. Each of the five projects will require such human tissue. The Core also provides postmortem animal tissues (canine and transgenic) that serve as model systems of brain aging. Tissues and embryos from investigators and the Core will facilitate crossing Hsiao APPsw and LaFerla APP and Abeta mice with other transgenic mice (e.g. Fas receptor mutant-lpr) as needed by Program investigators. All of the five projects will require canine or transgenic mouse lines. The Core will continue to produce high quality synthetic Abeta peptides and derivatives for us in vitro experiments, and in the production, characterization, and purification of specialized Abeta antibodies. All of the projects make use of peptides from the Core. Finally, the Core will quantify pathology within tissues distributed to Program investigators and maintain records of the distribution of all tissues and peptides, ensure the usage of common tissues and adjacent sections where appropriate and provide quantitative data in a format usable to all investigators. Statistics and power analyses for all Program Project Investigators will be guided by the Data Management and Biostatistics Core for the Institute for Brain Aging. To facilitate in case selection and quantification, the Tissue and Peptide Resource Core will also optimize staining parameters using Core generated antibodies and assist Program investigators with immunocytochemistry protocols.
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