Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute is home to a rich trove of biological material. Known as DNASU, this growing storehousea sort of genetic Library of Congressholds over 147,000 plasmids, (circular DNA samples that can be used to produce individual proteins), as well as full genome collections from numerous organisms and proteins associated with many leading human diseases.
A new $6.5 million grant from the National Institute of Health will help expand a critical component of this genetic archive known as the Protein Structure Initiative-Materials Repository (PSI:Biology-MR).
The PSI:Biology-MR effort began in 2006 in the laboratory of Joshua LaBaer, then at the Harvard Medical School Institute of Proteomics. LaBaer has directed Biodesign's Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics since 2009, where the PSI materials repository has continued its mission of collecting, annotating, storing, maintaining, and distributing plasmidsthe design templates for specific proteins created by researchers within the PSI's multi-institution structural genomics consortium.
Plasmids are small pieces of DNA, generally of a circular structure. They provide ancillary genetic information in bacteria and prokaryotic organisms, often containing specialized genes for essential functions. Plasmids are a particularly important tool for biotechnology. Researchers use them to study the effect of individual genes in cells or within an organism. Plasmids are also commonly used by researchers as biological flash drives that can be inserted into bacteria to make multiple copies of genes or express genes as proteins.
Proteins play an essential role in virtually all life processes. As LaBaer explains, expression-ready plasmids are vital to biomedical research, particularly for the study of human health and disease. "Proteins provide the verbs to biology. They energize, connect, signal, digest, activate, inactivate, move, transpor
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| Contact: Joe Caspermeyer joseph.caspermeyer@asu.edu 480-727-0369 Arizona State University Source:Eurekalert |
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