Abstract

The eye is a complex system of highly differentiated tissues of various developmental origins. Many genes essential for eye function are tissue-specific and many of those known are associated with genetic eye diseases. The majority of human expressed genes are known only through expressed sequence tags (ESTs). However, with the exception of retina, many eye tissues have been poorly represented in the cDNA libraries that have so far contributed to dbEST. To address this situation a project, NEIBANK, has been initiated to improve the EST coverage of the human eye. cDNA libraries for lens, ciliary body/iris and RPE/choroid have been constructed. 2000 clones from each un-normalized library have been sequenced, analyzed and clustered. Several novel genes have been identified, including Oculoglycan (an eye-specific LRR protein whose gene maps close to ARMD), LGS (an abundant lens specific transcript related to glutamine synthestase), Oculospanin (a novel tetraspan that maps to chr17) and others. Normalization and deeper sequence is under way. This resource will be of value for micro-arrays and for full- length cDNA collections. - EST, Bioinformatics, cDNA, genomics

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Intramural Research (Z01)
Project #
1Z01EY000320-01
Application #
6227954
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (MSF)
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
Budget End
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1999
Total Cost
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
U.S. National Eye Institute
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
State
Country
United States
Zip Code

  Publications

Wistow, Graeme; Peterson, Katherine; Gao, James et al. (2008) NEIBank: genomics and bioinformatics resources for vision research. Mol Vis 14:1327-37
Harding, Rachel L; Howley, Sinead; Baker, Lee J et al. (2008) Lengsin expression and function during zebrafish lens formation. Exp Eye Res 86:807-18
Purkiss, Andrew G; Bateman, Orval A; Wyatt, Keith et al. (2007) Biophysical properties of gammaC-crystallin in human and mouse eye lens: the role of molecular dipoles. J Mol Biol 372:205-22
Popp, Michael P; Liu, Li; Timmers, Adrian et al. (2007) Development of a microarray chip for gene expression in rabbit ocular research. Mol Vis 13:164-73
Wistow, Graeme (2006) The NEIBank project for ocular genomics: data-mining gene expression in human and rodent eye tissues. Prog Retin Eye Res 25:43-77
Wyatt, Keith; White, Helen E; Wang, Luchun et al. (2006) Lengsin is a survivor of an ancient family of class I glutamine synthetases re-engineered by evolution for a role in the vertebrate lens. Structure 14:1823-34
Bowes Rickman, Catherine; Ebright, Jessica N; Zavodni, Zachary J et al. (2006) Defining the human macula transcriptome and candidate retinal disease genes using EyeSAGE. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 47:2305-16
Vihtelic, Thomas S; Fadool, James M; Gao, James et al. (2005) Expressed sequence tag analysis of zebrafish eye tissues for NEIBank. Mol Vis 11:1083-100
Rabinowitz, Yaron S; Dong, Lijin; Wistow, Graeme (2005) Gene expression profile studies of human keratoconus cornea for NEIBank: a novel cornea-expressed gene and the absence of transcripts for aquaporin 5. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 46:1239-46
Ozyildirim, Aylin M; Wistow, Graeme J; Gao, James et al. (2005) The lacrimal gland transcriptome is an unusually rich source of rare and poorly characterized gene transcripts. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 46:1572-80

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