BIOinfOSU Director Dr. Peter Hoyt, in a collaboration with Dr. Michael Davis in the Comparative Exercise Physiology Lab has resulted in DEPSCoRfunding to study the transcriptional response and metabolomics of muscles from champion sled dogs. Dr. Davis is the PI on the proposal and (from his website) "has received over $4 million in research funding to study the effects of exercise stress in animal models, particularly racing sled dogs. This work has resulted in detailed metabolic studies of the occult effects of stress, including mechanistic descriptions of the effects of occult stress on various organ systems."

The availability of the Microarray Core four-color laser confocal scanner, may have helped entice Dr. Davis to partner with Dr. Hoyt. Using this new capability, they have already performed complete timecourse analyses on eight different dogs, using only TWO of Agilent's 4 X 44K canine arrays.  Not only does the four-color experiment save money, but it allows for direct comparisons to be made between each timepoint due to the simultaneous hybridization conditions. The RNA preparations, labeling, and hybridizations were carried out at OSU by Natacha Salazar, a Veterinarian working on her Masters Degree at Texas A&M. Natacha attended the Microarray Workshop, and immediately put the technologies she learned to good use under the supervision of Dr. Hoyt and Praveen Yerramsetti. Natacha is a student of Dr. Terry Fossum at TAMU. Other collaborators on the proposal include Dr. Guangping Chen (OSU), Dr. Kenneth Hinchcliff (University of Melbourne), Dr. Raymond Geor, (Michigan State University), Dr. Arend Bonen (University of Guelph).