The assay platform described here addresses all of these issues by combining the advantages of real-time PCR with the multiplexing capability of microarray technology.
Of the highest clinical relevance is the capability of microarray approaches to identify pathogenically essential structures and alterations that can be targeted by future drugs that, hopefully, will lead to an improved management of these diseases.
Due to sensitive and specific glycan recognition of the lectins and the inherent high-throughput, and fast analysis capability of microarray, lectin microarray has already been widely applied for profiling the surface glycans of a variety of species, from bacteria to human cells [ 17, 20, 32, 35].
Hence, the methodology presented in this study would become an important tool to assess the detection capability of microarray and other related biosensing platforms, realizing their excellent potential as high throughput, multicolor, and multiplexing biosensing devices for various biological and biomedical applications.
The high-throughput capability of microarrays enabled us to analyze more than 170 strains.
The capability of microarrays to provide a snapshot view of expression of a large number of genes may help us generate mechanistic hypotheses as well as identify biomarkers of exposure specific to environmental toxins.
The use of ratios or raw intensities is governed by the capabilities of the microarray technology, not by our algorithm.
Many of the genes identified in the clusters have also been noted as inducible genes in murine and human immune cells thereby attesting to the functional similarities of the immune systems of mammalian species and the capabilities of the microarray.
Several studies [ 7, 8, 9] have characterized the gene expression patterns of breast cancers, but the present study is the first to test the sensitivity and capabilities of oligonucleotide microarray analysis in determining tumor clonality.
