As part of school-wide efforts in developing genomics/proteomics, it is proposed to add a state-of-the-art protein array1 system, coupled to a mass-based peptide analysis/sequencing to our Vet DNA Core Facility. The instrument will be housed and operated in the recently renovated core facility at the School of Veterinary Medicine, and supervised by a Committee of major users. The major user group represents 5 major academic/research centers and 7 different departments of School of Veterinary Medicine, School of Medicine, and School of Dental Medicine, all located within a one to two block area of the campus. The facility will be used mostly (90 percent) by the user group with more than 50 NIH grants and 16 other federal/non-federal grants. The research interests of the major user group are focused on the basic as well as clinical aspects of cell and molecular biology, including transgenesis, germ cell biology, developmental aspects of histone, hemoglobin and immunoglobin gene expression, gene expression during sperm cell maturation, embryogenesis. myogenesis, mitochondrial stress signaling, sexual dimorpism in hepatic brain drug metabolism, teratogenesis, cell transformation, neuromuscular and hematopoeitic diseases, cancer genetics, genetic disorders of inherited metabolic diseases and development of gene therapy in animal models. All of the listed users have requirement for high sensitivity protein sequencing. About 8 groups have requirements for the high throughput analysis system, about 9 of them have requirements for analyzing oligomeric complexes containing a mixture of known and unknown proteins, about 12 have requirements for the identification and localization of phosphorylation, glycosylation sites as well as both N-terminal as well as internal processing. The facility will be run by an experienced biochemist/molecular biologist with extensive experience in protein chemistry, who is currently running a mass spectrometry laboratory.
