(mentions CMT) Neuromuscular Consortium to Use Roche NimbleGen Arrays

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Neuromuscular Consortium to Use Roche NimbleGen Arrays

February 26, 2009

http://www.genomeweb.com/arrays/neuromuscular-consortium-use-roche-

nimblegen-arrays

Roche announced today that the Neuromuscular Disorder-Chip Consortium

has selected Roche NimbleGen microarrays for its genetic research on

neuromuscular disorders (NMDs).

The researchers will use custom-designed NimbleGen Human CGH 12x135K

microarrays to look for NMD-related gene and exon level

rearrangements, deletions, or insertions — particularly for NMDs such

as Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophies, limb girdle muscular

dystrophies, congenital muscular dystrophies, hereditary motor-

sensory neuropathies, and Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathies.

The consortium also plans to use customized NimbleGen Human Sequence

Capture 385K arrays for capturing DNA fragments representing all

known genes in groups of NMDs. These fragments can then be coupled

with high-throughput sequencing to assess genetic variation in NMDs.

The NMD-Chip Consortium, a European Union Seventh Framework Programme

for Research and Technical Development, includes researchers from 13

European institutions in eight countries. The consortium's goals are

to not only learn more about the genetics underpinning NMDs, but also

to try to find faster and more cost-effective ways to study and

diagnose the conditions. Inherited NMDs affect roughly one in 1,000

people and cause progressive muscle and/or motor nerve degeneration.

University of the Mediterranée and National Institute for Health and

Medical Research (INSERM) researcher Nicolas Levy is the European

coordinator for the NMD-Chip project. In a statement released today,

Levy said that NimbleGen's high-density array technology, in

conjunction with new bioinformatics tools, " should completely renew

our point of view on NMDs, by providing fast, reliable and accurate

answers, at a much lower cost than ever before. "