Center for Functional Genomics and HCV-Associated Liver Disease
Michael Katze, Principal Investigator, University of Washington
Dave Camp, PNNL Contact
Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse
The Center for Functional Genomics and HCV-Associated Liver Disease project team comprises a diverse group of investigators, including experts in viral hepatitis, liver disease and transplantation, global gene expression analysis, proteomics, and advanced information technologies. The team's goal is to gain a detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the progression from chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection, human immunodeficiency vius (HIV) infection, and HCV/HIV co-infection to end-stage liver disease, including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The Center is being established with four cores: Functional Genomics & Virology, Proteomics, Bioinformatics & Biostatistics, and Administration. Investigators from basic and clinical science participate in the Functional Genomics & Virology Core. They provide a primary human hepatocyte cell culture system and access to unique patient populations, including biopsy material from patients with recurrent HCV after liver transplantation and from patients co-infected with HCV and HIV. An established infrastructure is in place for microarray analysis, including extensive experience in gene expression analysis during virus infection. The Proteomics core includes Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) collaborator, Dr. Richard Smith, a world expert in proteomics. His group offers mass spectrometry instrumentation and data processing capabilities that meet the team's need for robust, ultra-sensitive analysis of global protein expression profiling in HCV-infected, HIV-infected, and HCV/HIV co-infected clinical human liver biopsy samples. The incorporation of PNNL's rare, ultra-sensitive proteomic technologies allow continued progress toward the team's ultimate goal of providing a comprehensive molecular blueprint of the cellular response to HCV infection and a detailed picture of the cellular events characteristic of HCV-associated liver disease. Specialists in computational biology, bioinformatics, and statistics provide the essential functions of data management, analysis, and statistical evaluation. They will develop a national database resource of gene expression and proteomic data that can be accessed via the World Wide Web. Such a multidisciplinary approach provides a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of viral hepatitis and liver disease to a level far in excess of that which could be obtained by any of these investigators working individually.
Information for this webpage was taken from the NIH Functional Genomics and HCV-Associated Liver Disease project page.
Related Publications
Diamond DL, Proll SC, Jacobs JM, Chan EY, Camp DG 2nd, Smith RD, Katze MG. 2006. "HepatoProteomics: Appling proteomic technologies to the study of liver function and disease.” Hepatology 44(2):299-308.
Jacobs JM, DL Diamond, EY Chan, MA Gritsenko, WJ Qian, M Stastna, T Baas, DG Camp 2nd, RL Carithers, RD Smith, MG Katze. 2005. “Proteome analysis of liver cells expressing a full-length Hepatitis C virus (HCV) replicon and biopsies of post-transplanted liver from HCV-infected patients.” Journal of Virology 79(12):7558-7569.
