Abstract
High-density short oligonucleotide microarrays have become a widely used tool for measuring gene expression on a large scale1,2. However, details of the mechanism of binding on microarrays remain unclear3. Short oligonucleotide probes currently synthesized on microarrays are often ineffective as a result of limited sequence specificity or low sensitivity. Here, we describe a model of binding interactions on microarrays that reveals how probe signals depend on probe sequences and why certain probes are ineffective. The model indicates that the amount of nonspecific binding can be estimated from a simple rule. Using this model, we have developed an improved measure of gene expression for use in data analysis.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Keith Baggerly, Kevin R. Coombes, Kenneth Hess, Jan Hermans, Roberto Carta, Jing Wang, David Gold, LeeAnn Chastain and Zoltan Szallasi for suggestions on the manuscript and Nobert Wilke and Mini Kapoor for technical support. This work was supported by The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, a grant (DA14167) from the National Institute for Drug Abuse and funding from the State of California.
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Zhang, L., Miles, M. & Aldape, K. A model of molecular interactions on short oligonucleotide microarrays. Nat Biotechnol 21, 818–821 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt836
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt836
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