This proposal, if funded, will make possible the purchase of a Becton Dickinson FACS Vantage cell sorter by the University of South Alabama (USA) College of Medicine (COM). The technology and reliability represented by this instrument are required in the following areas of research at USA COM: (1) mechanisms of tumor promotion and carcinogenesis, (2) the effects of aging on DNA repair, (3) DNA vaccines for Schistosomiasis, (4) oncofetal antigens as immunogenic markers of premalignancy or neoplasia in human and other mammalian species, (5) analysis of chemokines and cytokines in the inflamed cornea following Herpes simplex infection, (6) gene therapy for hemo-globinopathies and thalessemias, (7) cell adhesion molecules during vaso-occlusive episodes of sickle cell patients, (8) hypoxic pulmonary hypertension and polyamines, (9) cell cycle control of DNA nuclear import, (10) oxidative DNA modification and gene expression in hypoxia, (11) isolation of mutants of Salmonella typhimurium defective in acid tolerance, (12) isolation of Rickettsia prowazekii transformants in a continuing study to establish a genetic system in the rickettsiae, (13) analysis of mitochondrial membrane potential in glial cell populations, (14) purification of differentiated oligodendrocytes from postnatal murine brain for primary culture, (15) measurement of calcium transients in vascular smooth muscle cells, and (16) These projects are being conducted in seven different departments within the COM including Internal Medicine, Micro-biology and Immunology, Physiology, Pharmacology, Structural and Cellular Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Pediatrics. Eleven of the projects in this proposal are NIH-funded. The cell sorter now used by the USA COM, a FACS 440, has become increasingly difficult and expensive to repair. Spare parts are becoming scarce for the outdated technology. To insure continued availability of standard flow cytometric methodology, as well as acquisition of new and/or enhanced flow cytometry techniques, for the NIH-funded investigators at USA COM, will require the replacement of our FACS 440 with an updated version of this instrument.
