Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry to Use Illumina Whole-Genome Arrays
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Illumina, Inc. has announced that it has signed an agreement with the Max-Planck Institute (MPI) of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany to supply Sentrix® BeadChips and Infinium™ assay reagents for a large-scale genotyping study.
The study will be performed by MPI's Center for Applied GenoTyping (CAGT) with two experimental goals: 1) to identify genetic variations that potentially predispose individuals to specific disorders such as depression and anxiety; and 2) further determine the impact of genetic variants on disease pathogenesis and response to psychotropic drugs.
In the first phase of the project, the MPI researchers, headed by Professor Florian Holsboer, M.D., Ph.D., Institute Director, will genotype a large sample set using Illumina's Sentrix Human-1 BeadChip.
Over 70% of the SNP markers in the Human-1 are located in or very near genes, enabling direct association of SNP markers with target disease phenotypes.
The Project's second phase will use a Sentrix BeadChip that can analyze over 250,000 TagSNPs derived from data generated by the International HapMap Project, for which Illumina is a Principal Investigator.
The supplemental per-sample TagSNP markers will give MPI significant power to uncover and detect patterns of linkage disequilibrium and disease association.
"We expect this study, one of the largest ever undertaken by the Institute, to generate highly informative data on genetic variants specifically associated with depression and anxiety," asserted Dr. Holsboer.
"Illumina's technology will help enable this scale of research, and we look forward to the day when our experimental data is translated into improved clinical approaches - at the Max Planck Institute as well as other psychiatric centers around the world."
According to Jay Flatley, Illumina President and CEO, "MPI will be one of the first research institutions to benefit from the combined power of our two, genome-wide genotyping BeadChips.”
“We're very pleased to be able to contribute to the Institute's groundbreaking research into the genetics of affective disorders like depression."
