Microarrays

A good overview of how microarrays work is given at the NIH website at

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/About/primer/microarrays.html

They are generally divided and differentiated by manyways

1. Type of of target DNA (immobilized nucleic acid molecule) used in the array fabrication.

  • cDNA
  • Oligonucleotide
  • RNA
  • Protein
  • Antibody
  • Tissue

2. Type of substrate to which the target DNA is printed or spotted

  • glass
  • membrane
  • bead technology by illumina

3. Methodology used to present the target DNA on the substrate

  • printed directly example affymterix, combimatrix
  • spotted example OCichip, MWG,

4. Density Of probes on the array

  • low density 100 s (example: protein anibodies)
  • medium density 1000s to 10s of 1000s and more (example:cDNA )
  • high density  100s to 1000s of 1000s 0(example” short oligonucloetide)

5. type of lebelling for hybridization

  • single channel , using one colour
  • double channel using two colour

there are many other different variat

ions b/w different brands now available in the market as the array technology is expanding

Some of the existing microarrays types are

Oligonucleotide Microarrays–spotted and direct print

CGH microarray

CHIP in chip microarrays

SNP microarray

cDNA microarray

Tissue microarrays

RNA microarrays

Protein Microarrays

Organic compund microarrays

Antibody microarrays

Tilling arrays

barcode microarrays

ROMA : Representational Oligonucleotide Microarray Analysis

5 Responses to “Microarrays”

  1. safa, on July 1st, 2007 at 7:22 pm Said:

    What is the best system to purchase in our lab …is it affymetrix or agilent I dont know ..is these open or close system?

  2. Albin Paul, on July 9th, 2007 at 11:54 am Said:

    Safa that a very tough question, I guess its rather much tough er compared to my girlfriend’s occasional questions on her weight. the only respite is I can answer this one more confidantly and perhaps be still happy about it too. I am sorry for replying late,both are two different technologies and its difficult to choose one over other both have problems,and advantages. its like comparing a four wheel drive against a two wheel drive . So I have to write another post as an answer to this. The bottom line is dont let technology drive your discovery and research interest let be the other way. I will write about this as the next post

  3. Stefan, on August 9th, 2007 at 4:29 am Said:

    Hi Safa,

    check http://www.geniom.com. That’s a nice flexible in-situ microarray synthesizer and includes a sophisticated hyb station plus reader. 8 microarrays are synthesized simultaneously in microchannels, which hold up to 10000 individual features. “Dynamic detection” allows you to make multiple pics at different temperature levels so you can create melting curves for each feature, which helps significantly during SNP detection.
    A proprietery synthesis scheme from 5′ to 3′ allows you to do “On-Chip-Biology” including PCR.
    And there are many more applications coming!
    Check it out and let us know what you think!

    Best

    Stefan

  4. Dr. Robert Solomon, on October 31st, 2007 at 1:57 pm Said:

    I am a radiologist, well connected in teleradiology/telemedicine. I am interested in developing imaging in drug trials/imaging core lab business.Feel free to contact me by email or at 516-547-5815.

  5. JC, on November 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am Said:

    Do you have any recommended suppliers of custom spotted oligo arrays?

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