HCC array for cnv
There is a clear need to develop biomarkers for Parkinson disease (PD) diagnosis and monitoring disease progression. In this study we evaluated cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteins, which are known to be critically involved in PD or identified in our preliminary profiling studies, aptamers, and RNAs as potential PD biomarkers. Access to subjects for this study was via the Pacific Northwest Udall Center (PANUC) and the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) at the University of Washington and Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU). Using CSF samples from 30 well-characterized patients with PD and 30 age-, sex-matched healthy controls, we prepared RNA seq libraries and performed deep sequencing of all RNA species, including small and long RNA, mRNAs, noncoding RNAs and differentially spliced transcripts. We then tried several methods for RNAseq data analysis to optimize our analysis pipeline. We identified a total of 3381 transcripts corresponding to 182 long intergenic RNAs (LincRNAs), 11 microRNAs (miRNAs), 2861 protein-coding transcripts, 200 pseudogenes and 127 antisense RNAs; some of them were differentially expressed between PD and control groups. Selected differentially expressed RNAs have been validated in the same set of CSF samples using real-time PCR (RT-PCR). Further validations in independent, larger cohorts of samples are still ongoing. Our results obtained so far suggested that CSF proteins and RNAs could be used as good indexes for PD diagnosis and disease severity/progression. This study is a part of the NIDDS-funded Parkinson's Disease Biomarkers Program (PDBP).
The Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) is a specialized Center of Emphasis at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with the primary goal of translating basic research findings to medical innovations. The mission of CAG is to develop new and better ways to diagnose and treat children affected by rare and complex medical disorders. We aim to discover genetic causes for the most prevalent diseases of childhood including asthma, autism, diabetes, epilepsy, obesity, schizophrenia, pediatric cancer, and a range of rare diseases. Ultimately, our objective is to generate new diagnostic tests and to guide physicians to the most appropriate therapies. The CAG is one of the world's largest genetics research programs in pediatrics, and the only center at a pediatric hospital to have established a large-scale biobank of genotyped samples. The electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network is a consortium of 9 clinical sites with EMR linked DNA biobanks, including Northwestern University and its NUgene biobank, funded by the NHGRI (National Human Genome Research Institute) to investigate the use of electronic medical record systems for genomic research. The goal of eMERGE is to conduct genome-wide association studies in approximately 100,000 individuals using EMR-derived phenotypes and DNA from linked biorepositories. Using electronic phenotyping methods, the consortium has been and is using DNA samples from all participating sites to explore the genetic determinants of approximately 80 phenotypes, including both diseases and traits, for which the electronic phenotyping algorithms have or are being published on PheKB.org.
