The development of Retrovirus and Herpes B virus Specific Pathogen Free (SPF), rhesus macaques has become a primary goal in captive breeding programs. These SPF colonies are important for the conduct of AIDS research and in protecting the health of personnel who care for animals or handle animal tissue. The goal of this project is to develop technology that will permit the monitoring of genetic diversity in the SPF rhesus macaque breeding colonies. Rhesus macaque nuclear DNA will be examined with restriction enzymes and clones to identify hypervariable restriction fragment length polymorphisms, (RFLP). Three large group housed populations of rhesus macaques with known paternity data will then be examined with RFLP analysis to determine the efficiency of hypervariable regions in defining pedigrees. At the same time protocols for use of different kinds of tissue samples such as unrefrigerated whole blood, saliva, hair, and skin will also be developed to extend the research applications of this technology. Once the technique is refined pedigree determination by RFLP analysis will be applied to SPF colony founder stock at the California Primate Research Center and offered as a service to other institutions to extend beyond the duration of this grant. A long term research goal of this project is to compare RFLP regions with medical, reproductive, mortality, and morbidity data on individuals to hopefully identify genetic markers for disease predisposition and/or reproductive performance.
