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Making and reading microarrays

Abstract

There are a variety of options for making microarrays and obtaining microarray data. Here, we describe the building and use of two microarray facilities in academic settings. In addition to specifying technical detail, we comment on the advantages and disadvantages of components and approaches, and provide a protocol for hybridization. The fact that we are now making and using microarrays to answer biological questions demonstrates that the technology can be implemented in a university environment.

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Figure ig1: a, Penn microarray robot.
Figure ig2: a, Schematic representation of a 12 pen array.
Figure ig3: a, An hybridized microarray printed by the AECOM robot.

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Acknowledgements

The AECOM group is indebted to S. Kneitz, R. Yang, S. Chen and T. Harris for their strenuous efforts towards building our facility. We thank H. Hu, J. Gregg, M. Bittner and P. Brown for stimulating discussions and R. Spielman and A. Bruzel for comments on the manuscript. The work at AECOM was supported by the Human Genetics Program and the Comprehensive Cancer Center at AECOM (NIH CA 13330). Work at the University of Pennsylvania was supported by grants (to V.G.C.) from Merck Genome Research Institute and the NIH (DC00154).

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Cheung, V., Morley, M., Aguilar, F. et al. Making and reading microarrays. Nat Genet 21 (Suppl 1), 15–19 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/4439

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