"Platform's sensitivity is much higher because it works with chemiluminescence instead of fluorescence, improving the detection of genes that are expressed in low amounts, notably regulatory proteins"
The Gene Expression Center Martinsried (GECM) at IMGM Laboratories in Germany is using the Applied Biosystems 1700 Chemiluminescent microarray analyser with the Panther protein classification system to analyse disease-related genes.
The GECM offers contract research that typically involves elucidating the changes in gene expression between different cellular states, and uses the Applied Biosystems 7900HT fast real-time PCR system with micro fluidic cards for validation of the results.
"There are several features of the 1700 Microarray analyser that I particularly like," said Mirko Vanetti, CEO of IMGM.
"First, the platform's sensitivity is much higher because it works with chemiluminescence instead of fluorescence, improving the detection of genes that are expressed in low amounts, notably regulatory proteins.
"Second it offers an additional 8000 genes that we can screen, which are not present on any other commercial microarray.
"The analyser also has a fluorescence mechanism that accurately detects and compensates for morphological spot irregularities and, as a result, our data are much more reliable.
"Our raw data are imported into the Panther database so we can quickly and easily identify which specific cellular pathways are over- or under-represented in one cellular state compared with another.
"Using the system's annotation with the database makes it much easier not only to extract results, but also to understand their meaning.
"People do not want to see long lists of genes whose expression levels alter, they want to receive results in a readable format".
