Untitled - The Future Ocean

4. New Cluster TechnologiesA special emphasis of the platform will be the development of a core facility for transgenic marinemodel organisms. Existing expertise on Hydra (Wittlieb 2006) and Phaeodactylum tricornutum(diatom) transgenic technology will be an excellent starting point for the creation of transgenicanimals which can be brought into defined and genetically modified microbial interactions. Thesegenetically modified organisms will be prerequisite for the marine biology projects of the Clusterand can be used for functional in vivo studies which dissect the pathways of barrier function,screen marine substance libraries and elucidate complex host/microbial interactions in B2.TheCluster is designed to set up an automated live microscopy facility (e.g. a Cellomics® instrument)in the ZMB for advanced high-content image analysis of single cells and model organisms. Thisplatform will be instrumental in generating multidimensional image data sets from numerousexperimental conditions in parallel. It will be complimentary to the high-throughput cell-based assayplatform and will be able to delineate morphological readouts which cannot be assessed by simplemolecular biology assays (e.g. developmental processes or cell motility).ReferencesHampe J, Cuthbert A, Croucher PJ, Mirza MM, Mascheretti S, Fisher S, Frenzel H, King K,Hasselmeyer A, MacPherson AJ, Bridger S, van Deventer S, Forbes A, Nikolaus S, Lennard-Jones JE, Foelsch UR, Krawczak M, Lewis C, Schreiber S, Mathew CG (2001) Associationbetween insertion mutation in NOD2 gene and Crohn's disease in German and Britishpopulations. Lancet. 357, 1925-8.Stoll M, Corneliussen B, Costello CM, Waetzig GH, Mellgard B, Koch WA, Rosenstiel P, AlbrechtM, Croucher PJ, Seegert D, Nikolaus S, Hampe J, Lengauer T, Pierrou S, Foelsch UR,Mathew CG, Lagerstrom-Fermer M, Schreiber S (2004) Genetic variation in DLG5 isassociated with inflammatory bowel disease. Nat Genet. 36, 476-80.Valentonyte R, Hampe J, Huse K, Rosenstiel P, Albrecht M, Stenzel A, Nagy M, Gaede KI,Franke A, Haesler R, Koch A, Lengauer T, Seegert D, Reiling N, Ehlers S, Schwinger E,Platzer M, Krawczak M, Muller-Quernheim J, Schurmann M, Schreiber S (2005) Sarcoidosisis associated with a truncating splice site mutation in BTNL2. Nat Genet. 37, 357-64.Spanagel R, Pendyala G, Abarca C, Zghoul T, Sanchis-Segura C, Magnone MC, Lascorz J,Depner M, Holzberg D, Soyka M, Schreiber S, Matsuda F, Lathrop M, Schumann G,Albrecht U (2005). The clock gene Per2 influences the glutamatergic system and modulatesalcohol consumption. Nat Med. 11, 35-42.Hiller M, Huse K, Szafranski K, Jahn N, Hampe J, Schreiber S, Backofen R, Platzer M (2004)Widespread occurrence of alternative splicing at NAGNAG acceptors contributes toproteome plasticity. Nat Genet. 36, 1255-7.Wittlieb J, Khalturin K, Lohmann J, Anton-Erxleben F, Bosch TCG (2006) Transgenic Hydra allowin vivo tracking of individual stem cells during morphogenesis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, inpress.104