Subventions et des contributions :

Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier (2017-2018 à 2018-2019).

There is an increasing awareness that our microbiota plays an important role in a variety of pathologicalx000D
disorders including obesity, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and colorectal cancer.x000D
Personalized medicine will evolve to include assays for the presence or absence of particular microbes inx000D
complex samples (e.g. stool). Most microbes are uncultivable and current genomic sequencing techniques arex000D
high resolution but slow and expensive. There will be an increasing need for targeted, inexpensive, and rapidx000D
culture-free methods to identify particular microbes from a variety of patient and environmental samples.x000D
MassArray technology is used to identify genetic polymorphisms for genetic testing. MassArray involvesx000D
the selective PCR amplification of as many as 40 different loci (multiplex PCR), where specific variantsx000D
(mutations) are subsequently identified by mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF). Arctic Diagnostics Inc.x000D
(ArcticDx, Toronto) has extensive experience in the use of MassArray, performing ~100,000 genetic tests onx000D
patients over the past 5 years to identify risk alleles for macular degeneration, cystic fibrosis, and gestationalx000D
diabetes. Given recent evidence that microbiota play a role in each of these diseases, ArcticDx is motivated tox000D
expand the application of their MassArray to identify specific microbial "fingerprints" in patient samples.x000D
Toward this end Arctic wishes to establish a collaboration with Dr. William Navarre (University ofx000D
Toronto), a microbiologist who has spent the past three years developing tools to culture and analyzex000D
microbiota samples from both humans and mice. We have developed a clear and technically feasible plan tox000D
determine if MassArray technology can be employed to simultaneously identify the presence or absence of upx000D
to 20 specific microbes from complex (mouse stool) samples. This will involve the development of multiplexx000D
primer sets specific to individual microbial species and troubleshooting the PCR, MALDI-TOF, andx000D
computational parameters necessary to achieve acceptable levels of specificity and selectivity.