Agilent has introduced eight-plex high-density microarrays with eight assays printed on a standard one by three inch glass slide, each containing up to 15,000 oligonucleotides
The new Agilent microarrays are available for a wide range of applications, including gene expression, array-based comparative genomic hybridisation (aCGH), microarray-based chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP-on-chip, also called location analysis), splice variants and DNA methylation measurements.
The flexibility of Agilent's SurePrint inkjet fabrication platform also makes it easy for researchers to design their own highly focused custom experiments, especially using eArray, Agilent's online microarray design tool.
The probes are synthesised in situ, and the 60-mer length provides superior sensitivity compared to other platforms.
Customers can design an experiment on their own computer, send the file to Agilent, and quickly receive high-quality custom microarrays.
In addition to the eight-plex format, Agilent offers a four-array-per-slide format with 44,000 features per array, and a two-array-per-slide format with 105,000 features per array.
"If a scientist can imagine an oligo microarray experiment, we can print it, and recent advances in printing technology are making it possible to screen many more samples in less time and at far less expense," said Rini Mukherjee Saxena, Agilent genomics senior product manager.
"We're now printing 244,000 features on a standard slide, with substantial increases on the way".
"The multi-array format has greatly enhanced our throughput," said Brad Cairns, scientist in the University of Utah, Department of Oncological Sciences.
"We now obtain high-quality and reproducible data at a much higher rate.
"Also, the ability to custom design arrays is exceptionally valuable for focused studies".
Cairns's lab investigates the relationship between chromatin structure and gene expression.
He uses genomics to study how the density, composition and modification state of nucleosomes help regulate genes.
"We find the higher throughput and focused formats valuable for our studies in pathogen detection and surveillance," said David Hirschberg, director for human immune monitoring, Stanford University Medical School.
"This multi-array format gives us the flexibility to run multiple samples with the same precision as the larger formats".
Michael Berger, of the Martha Bulyk Lab at Harvard University, uses Agilent multiplex microarrays in a novel way to study how transcription factors regulate DNA on a protein binding microarray.
"We bind purified transcription factors directly to the DNA on the slide to determine the DNA sequence that they bind to," Berger said.
"The 8x15k format allows us to screen more proteins at once."
