Professor Dr Bertram Brenig

Bertram Brenig is interested in the structural and functional analysis of mammalian genes and genomes. He is investigating the cause of different economical important genetic defects in livestock and other domesticated animals.
So far his main focus was on porcine genes and their function, e.g. he currently analyses the molecular origin of porcine hernia inguinalis and scrotalis. Using whole genome scans he identified several chromosomal regions that are linked to this disorder. Fine mapping, positional cloning and candidate gene analysis are used for further elucidation.
However, in recent years he also started to look at genes in other species, e. g. cattle, dog, sheep, and buffalo. Especially in cattle, he is interested in the molecular analysis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The differences in oral uptake of prion protein between cattle and pig is studied in vivo and in vitro. He was the first to identify humoral microvesical encapsulated nucleic acids that are altered during a prion infection and can be used as diagnostic tool. These findings were used to develop the first ante mortem BSE test. Humoral nucleic acids are also studied in several other diseases, e. g. liver carcinoma in dog and pancreatic neoplasias in cat.