Agilent Technologies has introduced an updated microarray-based comparative genomic hybridisation (aCGH) platform featuring high-definition CGH (HD-CGH) microarrays.
Agilent Technologies has introduced an updated microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) platform featuring high-definition CGH (HD-CGH) microarrays.
Now researchers can easily design their own CGH microarrays to target specific 'hot spots' in the genome.
Platform enhancements also include reagents and analytics software updates.
aCGH is one of the most promising methods for identifying and characterizing DNA copy number changes associated with cancer and genetic disorders, says the company.
Agilent originally launched its oligonucleotide (oligo) aCGH platform in January 2005, with a microarray for genome-wide scanning of chromosomal gains and losses on a single chip.
The customizable HD-CGH microarrays now pinpoint these genomic aberrations.
Mike Booth, general manager of Agilent's Genomics Business, said: "Now researchers have the freedom and flexibility to design virtually any experiment using genome-wide or HD-CGH microarrays".
Agilent says that its HD-CGH custom microarrays and related probe design services allow researchers to draw upon its database of approximately 4 million pre-designed and computationally validated CGH probes and do high-resolution tiling of regions of interest at 10-100 times higher resolution.
This enables customers to detect chromosomal changes that were difficult or impossible to detect using other platforms.
In a related development, Agilent has also updated its Human Genome CGH microarray with the addition of new probe set based on the latest genome build (NCBI Build 35) to further expand the coverage.
This microarray contains approximately 43 000 60-mer oligonucleotide probes, empirically validated in multiple model systems that span coding and non-coding sequences with an average spatial resolution of 35kb.
Agilent HD-CGH custom microarrays and off-the-shelf human genome CGH microarray 44B are part of the enhanced oligo aCGH platform that also includes new reagents and updated CGH Analytics software.
Agilent has optimised assay conditions to enable the use of full-complexity samples for reliable detection of DNA copy number changes.
Agilent claims that CGH Analytics software is the only commercial informatics system to visually explore and analyse aCGH data from single or multiple microarray experiments.
The version (v3.1) now offers improved aberration detection algorithms, analyses data from replicate or dye-swap experiments, filters out unreliable or irrelevant data, compares results from multiple CGH array designs, and enables side by side visualisation of Agilent gene expression and CGH data.
