Events

Best Institute, Toronto
 
The Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI), together with the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) hosted a half-day scientific workshop focused on affinity reagents for epigenetic research. 

This workshop, supported by the OGI Genomics Project Development (GPD) workshops program, was part of the SGC symposium on “Epigenetic Mechanisms in Health and Disease” and provided a forum for researchers to discuss future collaborations and joint initiatives in the area of affinity reagents for epigenetic research.

Background and motivation

There exists a large need for validated affinity reagents in the emerging field of epigenetics.  Highly specific antibodies are not only essential for chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments coupled with DNA microarray (ChIP/chip) or next generation sequencing (ChIP/seq) readout,  but they are also crucial for key biochemistry (Western blot and immunoprecipitation) and cell biology (immunofluorescence and FRET) experiments.  In fact, the availability and quality of affinity reagents often directly correlates with advancement of biological discoveries and entire research fields.  Epigenetics is a prime example. The development of specific histone antibodies has led to increased understanding of chromatin and its role in transcription and regulatory biology.

Workshop aims

To discuss the production of affinity reagents (such as synthetic antibodies and protein clamps) that are specific for individual targets of the human epigenome and which will be made available to the scientific community without restrictions.  Initially, epigenetic targets will be prioritized for their need of high quality affinity reagents.  Subsequently, new or existing collaborations will plan the validation of the respective affinity reagents and ultimately the targets validation for therapeutic intervention in epigenetic diseases such as cancer, mental health and inflammation.

The generation of affinity reagents for the human epigenome is a pilot project for a much larger effort that aims to produce specific affinity reagents against a significant portion of targets from the human proteome. Consequently, general discussions on the production of affinity reagents and the establishment of new collaborative efforts will facilitate this larger human proteome project.

Workshop outcomes

• The SGC, the newly formed In Vitro Affinity Reagents Consortium (IVAC) and the monoclonal antibody facility at EMBL in Rome are embarking on a pilot effort to create renewable affinity reagents (highly specific recombinant and/or monoclonal antibodies) for epigenetic targets.
• During the workshop, it was decided that this pilot phase should focus on targets that people in the community are already working on, so that there exists built-in expertise to validate reagents and procedures.  Initial validation will be via ELISA and SPR.
• Several candidate proteins and markers have been suggested already.  A questionnaire has been sent to workshop participants soliciting additional target names so that the target list can be expanded to 30-50 targets with the goal of finalizing this list of antigens by mid November 2009.