How do DNA microarrays work?
Basic Explanation
DNA microarrays work on the principal of base-pairing . Base-pairing allows probes to hybridize to targets on the microarray.
At a basic level microarrays are implemented as follows: a cell's RNA is extracted. This RNA (targets) is then multiplied, labeled with fluorescence and hybridized to existing DNA (probes) on the microarray. After hybridization, the probes that were hybridized with targets are fluorescent and a computer scanner is able to detect this fluorescence. Those probes that are fluorescent correspond to the genes that were expressed in the cell.
The microarray is composed of millions of spots (sometimes referred to as cells), each with thousands of probes. Each 20 micrometer cell can contain up to 10^7 probes. The enormous number of probes is to increase hybridization probability and possibilities.
Figure 1 is an illustration of the principal of hybridization. A cell (G) is laced with probes of DNA (either oligonucleotide sequences, or cDNA. See below for more information). The fluorescent targets (green circles) are then exposed to the microarray and allowed to hybridize.
Oh... that was something new to learn... Although all of the cells in the human body contain identical genetic material, the same genes are not active in every cell. Studying which genes are active and which are inactive in different cell types helps scientists to understand both how these cells function normally and how they are affected when various genes do not perform properly. That's the reason many customized Microarray service providers give high quality customized microarray services like Transcriptomics, Genomics & Epigenetics for microarray experiments on Agilent, Illumina and Nimblegen. Learn more about Microarray and get microarray done. Thanks
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