Posters

We have developed a competitive qPCR method in which siRNA competes with a homologous forward primer to bind template DNA, giving siRNA concentration dependent inhibition. The addition of E6-siRNA to cqPCR led to inhibition of amplification in a linear concentration-dependent manner, with as little as 200pg of siRNA capable of being detected. Irrelevant siRNA had no effect on amplification confirming specificity

The purpose is to study the role of multidrug resistance-associated protein 5, MRP5 in drug metabolism in human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). RPE forms the outer part of blood-retinal barrier (BRB) which restricts movements of solutes from systemic bloodstream to the neural retina. The efflux protein, MPR5 is expressed in RPE but its functions are mainly unknown. SiRNA will be tested as a tool to clarify the role of MRP5.

Caveolin1 (Cav-1) function either as a tumor supressor or as a promoter of metastasis. Overexpresion of cav-1 was correlated with: tumoral grading, proliferration markers (Ki67, p53), serum tumor markers (CEA, CA19.9) and angiogenic markers (VEGF, bFGF).

Unannotated transcripts, including antisense, noncoding, intergenic, and potential regulatory RNAs, were identified in three different eukaryotic model organisms by cDNA cloning and sequencing. A rapid double-stranded cDNA generation system will be described.

In a worldwide first proscpective phamacogenetic study preliminary results show reduction of adverse drug reactions and hospitilisation stays for geriatric patients after pharmacogenetic testing and medication interaction analysis to fit the medicine to the patient.

Gene expression pattern of 14 members of RLCK class VI in Arabidopsis is described. qRT-PCR was used to determine the transcript levels in the various organs of plant as well as under a series of abiotic stress/hormone treatments in seedlings.

The cDNA libraries from single oocytes and pre-implantation buffalo embryos from 2 cell stage to blastocyst were established. Relative expression studied with RT-PCR of IGF-I showed an increase at 12h and decline at 24h of IVM oocytes. IGF-IR was expressed at cleavage stages to blastocyts. Glut-I was expressed in IVM oocytes and SCNT embryos at all stages. Gene expression of IGF-I, IGF-IR and Glut-I plays an important role in SCNT embryo production.

We demonstrate that DNA methylation patterns can serve as characteristic markers to distinguish different cell types. We have identified panels of methylation markers that are specific to mesenchymal stem cells or various differentiated cell types in the mesenchymal lineage. This method of cell type identification has a number of advantages over conventional markers in that it is robust, is both qualitative and quantitative.

Recently, TaqMan® assays have been developed for detection of genetic variation at gene level using primers and probes designed for genomic DNA sequences. The R package TaqGCN contains classes and methods that can be used for data reading and plotting, and for predicting gene copy number.