This application seeks funds to allow investigators from two CTSA-funded institutions (The Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences and the Duke Translatlonal Medicine Institute to access materials from two Animal and Biological Materials Resources nonhuman primate breeding colonies (P40 RR019963: Chlorocebus aethiops;P40 RR021380: Macaca fascicularis), both of which are located at the Wake Forest University Primate Center. Specifically, this grant will focus on sequencing and analyzing microbes that reside in nonhuman primates, determine how diet affects the microbiome, describe the extent to which diet-related differences in microbial populations are related to risk factors for common diseases (cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes), and initiate comparisons with human microbiomes. These efforts are in direct support of the specific aims of both P40 grants, which, in addition to producing monkeys for biomedical research, are directed toward development of monkey models for the investigation of the chronic and degenerative diseases that comprise a large part of the health burden of adult Americans.
(provided by applicant): The proposed study will demonstrate the impact of diet on microbial type and number within monkey species, determine the extent of microbial variation that can be expected between two monkey species, and identify relationships between microbial indices and biomarkers for chronic disease risk under different dietary conditions. The resulting data will help determine the biomedical relevance of the microbiome in relation to chronic disease risk and identify factors (such as diet) that may influence planned studies in the Human Microbiome Project (an NIH Roadmap initiative).
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