MMPC :: MMPC Cores

Center Cores

Each Center at the MMPC is subdivided into a set of Center Cores. The following is a list of the Cores at each Center and a short description of the cores. You can select a Center below to view only it's Cores. Click on the Center's core name to view the full description.

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	Center Core	Core Description	Options
	Center: Case Western Reserve University; Director: Henri Brunengraber, M.D., Ph.D.
	Analytical Core	The analytical Core conducts all assays involving the determination of isotope labeling and concentration profiles of metabolites including (i) the 2H-labeling of water, lipids and amino acids, (ii) the 18O-labeling of water, (iii) the concentration profile of acyl-CoAs (e.g. short, medium and long-chain species), and (iv) metabolic profiles of citric acid cycle intermediates, amino acids and fatty acids.
	Metabolic Core	The Metabolic Core conducts in vivo and ex vivo metabolic experiments on mice shipped to the Case MMPC. This core focuses on the following techniques and measurements: 1) Chronic or acute arterial, jugular and/or gastric catheterization 2) Acute catheterization of portal vein or urinary bladder 3) Energy expenditure integrated over four days by the "doubly-labeled water" method 4) Rates of fatty acid, cholesterol, triglycerides, or protein synthesis measured using 2H2O 5) Insulin clamp, pancreatic clamp 6) Food intake 7) Body temperature 8) Urine and blood chemistry analysis 9) Glycosylated hemoglobin 10) Liver perfusion and heart perfusion 11) Tissue perfusion and fixation
	Center: University of California Davis; Director: K.C. Kent Lloyd, DVM, Ph.D.
	Animal Care Core	The Animal Core for the Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center (MMPC) at UCD (MMPC-UCD) is comprised of space, resources, and personnel within the UCD Mouse Biology Program (MBP). The Core imports and acclimatizes investigator’s mice into the MMPC for phenotypic analysis with minimal delay. This process increases throughput of mice into the MMPC, reduces wait times for investigators, broadens the availability of metabolic phenotyping tests, and expedites data generation and project completion. For investigators that do not specific mutant mice, the Core can arrange for purchase from any number of public repositories, including the KOMP and MMRRC repositories at UCD. In addition, the Core can make genetically-altered mutant mice for investigators and enter them directly and immediately entered into the MMPC for analysis.
	Body Composition, Thermoregulation, and Food Intake Behavior Core	The Body Composition, Thermoregulation, and Food Intake Behavior Core provides clients with in-depth assessments of molecular and whole-animal phenomena relevant to body weight regulation and metabolism. This Core has a unique strength in the application of dietary and thermoregulatory challenge tests designed to unmask subtle phenotypes associated with energy balance and gut function. Core personnel have proven capabilities in studying mouse energetic, adipose tissue biology, and energy balance regulators including gut signals. The Core employs state-of-the-art approaches and a unique perspective that includes an appreciation of the roles of gut physiology and peripheral neuron function.
	Cardiovascular Biology and Pathology Core	The Complications and Pathology Core provides detailed metabolic and cardiovascular phenotyping of mice for macrovascular and microvascular complications of diabetes and obesity using new state-of-the-art approaches. Core expertise includes monocyte and endothelial cell biology, cerebrovascular and cardiac structure and function, and mouse cardiovascular anatomy, physiology, pathology, and micro imaging.
	Metabolism and Endocrinology Core	The Metabolism and Endocrinology Core provides expertise, technical resources, and instrumentation necessary to characterize perturbations in metabolism in murine models potentially useful for understanding diabetes, its complications, obesity, and related metabolic disorders. The Core conducts in vivo and in vitro metabolic procedures to assess insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, and glucose tolerance and offers an extensive list of assays of metabolic substrates, endocrine hormones, and indices of renal function, insulin signaling, inflammation and endoplasmic reticulum stress. In addition, the Core provides assay management services for the analysis of samples generated by other Cores of the MMPC-UCD
	Center: University of Cincinnati Medical Center; Director: Patrick Tso, Ph.D.
	Cardiovascular and Renal Function Core	The Cardiovascular and Renal Function Core specializes in various blood pressure and flow parameters that can be affected by diabetes and/or obesity in the intact animal or isolated heart. In addition, changes in arterial response to vessel wall injury can be measured.
	Energy Metabolism, Food Intake & Body Weight Regulation Core	Obesity is the major predisposing risk factor for type II diabetes. This core provides comprehensive set of measurements of food intake, energy expenditure (including use of indirect calorimetry) and body fat composition.
	Lipid, Lipoprotein and Glucose Metabolism Core	Diabetes is defined by abnormalities in circulating metabolites; obviously glucose metabolism is impaired, but the presence of certain dyslipidemias can also lead to a predisposition for cardiovascular disease in diabetic patients. This core is capable of measuring numerous metabolic parameters in mouse models pertaining to serum lipid profiles, glucose metabolism and plasma hormones.
	Center: University of Massachusetts Medical School; Director: Jason Kim, Ph.D.
	Analytical Core	The Analytical Core utilizes high-throughput instrumentations to provide standardized measurements of hormones, metabolites, and cytokines in serum/tissue samples obtained from mice. Leading expertise in islet biology offers histological and molecular analysis of pancreatic islet cells.
	Animal Care Core	The Animal Care Core provides services and facilities for stable, biocontainment housing, husbandry, and health care of mice. The Core manages transfer of mice from the user's institution and testing of mice for the quarantine process.
	Metabolism Core	The Metabolism Core conducts non-invasive, in vivo, and physiological experiments to identify metabolic phenotypes in awake mice. The Core services are highlighted by hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps to measure insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism, hyperglycemic clamps to assess pancreatic ß-cell function, ¹H-MRS to determine body composition, and metabolic cage analysis to examine food intake, physical activity, and energy expenditure.
	Center: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Director: Craig Malloy, M.D.
	Rogers NMR Center Metabolic Core	The Rogers NMR Center Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center specializes in the use of stable isotopes for investigations of metabolism, including a comprehensive analysis of gluconeogenesis. Our goal is to provide a repertoire of metabolic analyses that can be standardized and used to phenotype mouse models of type 2 diabetes. These tools are based on new concepts for probing intermediary metabolism using 13C- or 2H-enriched compounds. In some instances the studies are simple enough to perform in the referring investigator's lab; only partially processed tissue samples need be shipped to the Rogers NMR Center for full analysis. Procedures are available for determining the substrates contributing to plasma glucose, measurement of both the relative and absolute rates of the pathways involved in gluconeogenesis, substrate utilization in the heart, and 23Na/31P NMR investigations of liver metabolism. In addition, software is made available to predict the potential effects of genetic manipulation on various pathways.
	Center: University of Washington, Seattle; Director: Renee LeBoeuf, Ph.D.
	Cardiovascular Core	Description of Services: 1) Cardiovascular injury models (myocardial infarction, hindlimb ischemia and collateralization. 2) Structural and physiological assessment of organ damage that reflect common complications of diabetes. 3) Flow cytometric quantitation of circulating progenitor cells (e.g. c-kit, sca-1, Flt-1, and CD31). 4) Bioimmunoassay analysis of growth factors, cytokines, and chemokines affecting the cardiovascular system in diabetes and in injury.
	Diabetes and Energy Balance Core	Description of Services * Precise, non-invasive, quantitative assessment of energy homeostasis in rodent models including energy expenditure, respiratory quotient, locomotor activity, body temperature, food intake, meal patterns and body composition. * Assessment of a variety of metabolic disease phenotypes associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes such as glucose intolerance, insulin resistance and hyperlipidemia in mice. * Quantification of the extent of insulitis and other inflammatory parameters in mouse models of type 1 diabetes mellitus such as autoimmune NOD and hyperglycemic Akita mice and mice treated with pancreatic islet toxins. * Quantification using PCR approaches of the expression of genes in the hypothalamus and other sites involved in food intake, energy expenditure, and tissue complications of diabetes. * Quantification of circulating and/or tissue factors (e.g. hormones, proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates) associated with the metabolic syndrome, obesity, type 1 diabetes, or type 2 diabetes. * Longitudinal studies: To perform longitudinal studies in single animals as a function of age, diet or special treatment regimes using specific drugs or islet toxins.
	Nephrology, Macrovascular and Microvascular Core	Description of Services 1) Blood pressure, plasma lipid and lipoprotein levels, urine albumin. 2) Processing (freezing and/or fixation and paraffin embedding) of tissue or cells. 3) Sectioning of frozen and paraffin-embedded tissue blocks appropriate for light, fluorescent and electron microscopy. 4) Diagnostic pathology expertise in the evaluation of local and systemic effects in tissues and target organs of diabetic animals. 5) Monoclonal and pojyclonal antibodies to targeted gene products and reporter genes (e.g., p-galactosidase, alkaline phosphatase, green fluorescent protein). 6) RNA and DNA probes for in situ hybridization studies, which complement studies of expressed proteins.
	Center: Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Director: David Wasserman, Ph.D.
	Analytical Resources Core	The Analytical Resources Core performs these major tests: plasma hormones, amino acids, lipids and lipoproteins, pathology and immunohistochemistry.
	Cardiovascular Pathophysiology & Complications Core	The Cardiovascular Pathophysiology and Complications Core conducts these major tests: morphology and histology, echocardiography, electrocardiography, blood pressure, vascular morphology, renal function, metabolic panel in state-of-the-art facilities.
	Metabolic Pathophysiology Core	The Metabolic Pathophysiology conducts these major tests: vein/artery cannulations, glucose and insulin clamps, glucose tolerance test, tissue specific glucose/fatty acid uptake, calorimetry, exercise, gluconeogenesis/glycogenolysis, body composition, food consumption, optical imaging of gene expression/cellular events, isolation of pancreatic islets /insulin secretion.
	Center: Yale University School of Medicine; Director: Gerald Shulman, M.D., Ph.D.
	Analytical Core	Metabolic phenotyping of transgenic mice requires the ability to determine whole body, tissue specific, and cellular metabolic fluxes, and to delineate cellular mechanisms of signal transduction. The Analytical Core provides the expertise, technical resources, and instrumentation necessary to characterize perturbations in metabolism in transgenic mice strains, and serves as a resource lab for the analysis of samples generated during the course of experiments undertaken by the in vivo, in vitro, and NMR cores.
	In Vivo Metabolism Core	The In Vivo Metabolism Core at the Yale Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center is designed to conduct in vivo experiments and analytical assays to characterize the metabolic phenotype of transgenic/knockout mouse models potentially useful for understanding diabetes, its complications, obesity, and related metabolic disorders.