The facility can do both large- and small-scale peptide synthesis, including the synthesis of phosphopeptides, peptides containing unusual amino acids & multiple antigen peptide systems (MAPS) for vaccine production or monoclonal antibody production. The facility also has the capability to synthesize combinatorial peptide libraries. The facility provides N-terminal protein/peptide sequence analysis of samples in solution or of samples electro-blotted onto polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membranes. The facility personnel also perform chemical and enzymatic digestion of proteins in solution or proteins blotted onto PVDF to provide internal sequence information.

Specific phenotypic tests, such as body weight measurements, intraperitoneal injections, blood collection & urine testing can be performed subject to approval by the Animal Ethics and Experimentation Committee. The facility can also provide clinical chemistry analysis, flow cytometry and microarray analysis of tissues or sorted cells. Expert advice on developing or evaluating the results of specialized phenotyping tests is available through the network. Standard Phenotyping Services are, blood collection by retro-orbital bleed, tail vein, saphenous vein, jugular catheter and vena cava (attermination), blood samples are used for monitoring fasting & fed glucose levels in diabetic rats (T2DN,Zucker), isolation of either plasma or serum from blood for measurement of clinical chemistries or drug levels, ?24-hour urine collection for measurement of biomarkers for renal damage due to disease (nephropathy,ESRD) or drug toxicity, biomarkers include, but not limited to proteinuria & glucosuria, clinical chemistry analysis for measurement of biomarkers for kidney (BUN,creatinine), liver (ALT, AST, SDH) & heart (CK) damage, histopathology that includes organ preservation, generation of tissue slices, staining and scoring by certified pathologists. EUMORPHIA is an integrated research programme involving development of new approaches in phenotyping, mutagenesis & informatics leading to improved characterisation of mouse models for the understanding of human physiology and disease.

The inoculation of P-solubilizing microorganisms is a promising technique because it can increase P availability in soils fertilized with rock phosphates. Several authors have identified the ability of fungi, mainly of Aspergillus & Penicillium genus, to solubilize phosphates under in vitro conditions. That ability is generally associated to the release of organic acids, decreasing the pH. Moreover, these organic acids can increase considerably P in the soil solution through the quelation of Ca, Fe and Al, change reactions & solubilization of low soluble salts. Beyond the phosphate solubilization, many P-solubilizing microorganisms increase the mycorrhizal root colonization by production of specific metabolites as vitamins, amino acids & hormones. Therefore, there is a demand on studies on this subject, in order to improve the functional knowledge of compatibility of those microorganisms aiming at their coinoculation to increase the nutrition and growth of plant species.