Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The real-time polymerase chain reaction machine (RT-PCR)  is capable of determining differences in the expression patterns of genes expressed during growth and differentiation, and is rapidly becoming the research standard for determining the effects of various experimental treatments on gene expression. This in turn is critical for understanding at the fundamental level how experimental treatments work in  animals and plants, and the biology of the system being affected. This proposal is to request the purchase of an RT-PCR machine to use in the research programs of Drs. Leslie MacLaren, Kirsti Rouvinen-Watt and Gefu Wang-Pruski. Dr. MacLaren studies the fetal-maternal interactions during pregnancy establishment in ruminants, with a focus on integrins, steroid receptors and other signaling molecules and their response to external factors impacting pregnancy outcome. Dr. Wang-Pruski works in potato genomics at the DNA, RNA and protein levels. Her discovery grant research is focused on understanding the biology of after-cooking darkening and using a genomics approach to prevent the onset of the condition. Dr. Rouvinen-Watt is a carnivore nutritionist with considerable expertise and interest in glucose metabolism and physiology. Her discovery grant program aims to clarify the underlying pathology of nursing sickness in mink, a condition characterized by Rouvinen-Watt as comparable to type II diabetes.  All three researchers need to be able to determine relative levels of expression of the genes regulating the physiological traits of interest, and real-time PCR is the most appropriate for doing so in the systems they use. The specific commercial model requested is the Applied Biosystems 7500 Fast Real-time PCR. An ability to access this machine will substantially increase the capacity of all three researchers by providing the best molecular tool for their studies, increasing research productivity as well as their ability to train highly skilled personnel, particularly graduate and undergraduate students.