THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING LAB: Miniaturisation and microfluidics are producing powerful new tools for exploring the human genome - and an avalanche of new data

摘要

EXPERIMENTS on tiny devices called microarrays could lead to new drugs, smarter diagnosis, and patient-centred prescribing by helping discover the genes (see 'The Human Genome', p37) that are involved in disease. Also known as a DNA chip or a gene chip, a microarray is a glass slide, nylon membrane or silicon chip, with thousands of different, application-specific DNA sequences, known as probes, fixed at different addresses on the chip's surface. When samples of specially prepared biological test tissue are 'exposed' to the microarray, bonds (see 'Hybridisation', p38) formed between the genes in the sample and the probe genes on the surface of the microarray cause the test material to adhere preferentially to specific sites. This results in a two-dimensional 'expression profile' pattern, specific to the genetic composition of the test material.