MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London
Science for Health
Affymetrix microarray facility
This facility enables a wide range of highly parallel genomic analyses, making use of the sequence data from a diverse range of organisms. A major use is for the generation of gene expression profiles, enabling the understanding of complex biological processes and disease through approaches such as Systems Biology analysis; other applications include ChIPon- chip experiments to analyse the global interactions between DNA and regulatory proteins and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis for use in genome wide association studies.
The Institute has an Affymetrix GeneChip® system for which microarrays are available for a number of species; we have used those for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Drosophila, Xenopus, zebrafish, chicken, dog, mouse and human. It is equipped with an Affymetrix 7G scanner and GeneChip 450 fluidics station.
We have the necessary equipment for RNA and DNA QC analysis using the Nanodrop spectrophotometer and Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. Scientists prepare RNA or DNA which is then used to perform the necessary fluorescent labelling, hybridisation, washing and scanning. The data is then available for individuals to analyse with their preferred software; we have two licences for GeneSpring which can be used.
The facility is available to NIMR scientists as well as external collaborators.
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Image of hybridised probe array
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Agilent Bioanalyzer trace showing minimal degradation of RNA
© MRC National Institute for Medical Research
The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA
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