Affymetrix Core Facility

 Nutrition Department

The University of Tennessee Affymetrix Core Facility is a user fee facility catering to in house and local users. The Core is supported by The College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, The Institute of Agriculture, The School of Veterinary Medicine, The Department's of Microbiology and BCMB, The College of Nursing and UT Medical Hospital.

          Using Affymetrix Gene Expression GeneChips, investigators are able to examine differential gene expression in a wide variety of cell types and tissues. There are currently over a dozen types of GeneChips available including Yeast, Human, Rat, Mice. In the upcoming year, over 200 microbial species will be available and plant types inclusing wheat, corn and poplar. Investigators at the University of Tennessee have used GeneChips to study obesity and lipid metabolism, environmental toxins, and certain cancers.

      The Gene Chip probe arrays are manufactured using technologies that combine photolithography and combinatorial chemistry. Over 400,000 unique oligonucleotide probes are synthesized on each GeneChip representing anywhere from 12,000 to 23,000 genes/EST. Each probe set contains a perfect match and a single base mismatch to serve as a control for non-specific binding.

       The Affy Core has the latest Affymetrix Gene Chip Instrumentation including a Gene Chip 640 Hybridization Oven, a Gene chip 450 Fluidics Station and a GeneChip 7G Scanner. The Facility also has an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer to assess quality. The Core has a Nanodrop Spectrophotometer for the most accurate quantification of small amounts of RNA.

        The Affymetrix Core Facility Director is Julia Gouffon. She has her Masters Degree in Microbiology and fifteen years of technical experience at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Executive Director is Dr. Jay Whelan, Head of the Nutrition department.