Novartis Scientists Discover Activators of PGC-1a Transcription

Novartis scientists have published their use of OriGene's TrueClone™ full-length cDNA collection to identify activators of PGC-1a transcription.

This work was recently published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled "Transducer of regulated CREB-binding proteins (TORCs) induces PGC-1a transcription and mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle cells" (PNAS, September 26, 2006 vol. 103 no.39 14379-14384).

PGC-1a is a co-activator of PPAR-g and regulator of adaptive thermogenesis. Activators like TORCs can serve as potential therapeutic targets to modulate mitochondrial function which is implicated in many human diseases.

Arrays of transfection-ready full-length cDNAs allow scientists to query the roles of genes and proteins in disease phenotypes and pathways in a high throughput mode.

OriGene's expression ready full-length cDNA clone collection has been used by many leading pharmaceutical companies and research institutes providing numerous discoveries.

OriGene is also making available over 20,000 full-length cDNA clones into an functional expression tool through the GFC-Array product line.

"OriGene's mission is to build the most comprehensive collection of human full-length cDNAs in expression-ready vectors and to make this collection available to all researchers for systematic studies of human gene functions," said Karl Kovacs PhD, Vice President of Alliance Management at OriGene.

"We are glad to see our clones being used to generate valuable data for target discovery at Novartis."