DNA Microarray Overview: (Some Slides From Dr. Holly Dressman, Duke University
DNA Microarray Overview: (Some Slides From Dr. Holly Dressman, Duke University
Protein
DNA
RNA
(messenger)
cell
Gene Expression
• Proteins do most of the work
• They’re dynamically created/destroyed
• So are their mRNA blueprints
• Different mRNAs expressed at different
times/places
• Knowing mRNA “expression levels” tells a
lot about the state of the cell
Microarrays
A snapshot that captures the activity
pattern of thousands of genes at once.
cells
uv
array
mRNA
An Example Application
• 72 leukemia patients
– 47 ALL
– 25 AML
• 1 chip per patient
• 7132 human genes per chip
Diagnostics
- Potential to diagnose clinical conditions by detecting gene expression
patterns associated with disease states in either biopsy samples or
peripheral blood cells.
Microarray Technologies
• Oligo Arrays
– Affymetrix -
• one color
• Short oligos
• match/mismatch
– Agilent, inter alia
• 2 color
• Longer oligos
• Spotted cDNA arrays
GeneChip Probe Array
®
GeneChip Probe Arrays ®
1.28cm
Each probe cell or feature contains
millions of copies of a specific
oligonucleotide probe
(25-mer)
Gene Expression
Tiling Strategy
Uninduced Induced
40 separate hybridization events are involved in
determining the presence or absence of a transcript
80 separate hybridization events are involved
determining differential gene expression between two
samples
Synthesis of Ordered
Oligonucleotide Arrays
Light
(deprotection)
Mask
OOOOO HO HO O O O TTOOO
T–
Substrate
Light
(deprotection)
Mask CATAT
AGCTG
TTOOO TTCCO TTCCG
C–
Substrate REPEAT
Spotted Microarray Process
GenePix Pro Features
• Auto Align
Disadvantages
Clone management
Clone cost
Quality control
Affymetrix GeneChip system
Advantages
Stream line production
Large number of genes and ESTs/chip
Several number of species
Disadvantages
System cost
GeneChip cost
Propietary system
Limits on customizing
Micro Array Noise Sources
• Lot-to-lot variation (chips, reagents,…)
• Experiment-to-experiment variation
– cell state, culture purity
– sample preparation, hybridization conditions
• Spot-to-spot variation
– unequal dye encorporation
– dye nonlinearity/saturation
– uneven spot sizes
– self- & cross-hybridization
– Image capture & processing (spot finding, quantization, sensors)
• …
Challenges in analyzing Microarray Data
•Amount of DNA in spot is not consistent
•Spot contamination
•cDNA may not be proportional to that in the tissue
•Low hybridization quality
•Measurement errors
•Spliced variants
•Outliers
•Data are high-dimensional “multi-variant”
•Biological signal may be subtle, complex, non linear,
and buried in a cloud of noise
•Normalization
•Comparison across multiple arrays, time points, tissues,
treatments
•How do you reveal biological relationships among genes?
•How do you distinguish real effect from artifact?
Factors to consider in designing
microarray experiments
•Need to do lots of control experiments-validate method
•Do replicate spotting, replicate chips, and reverse labeling
for custom spotted chips
•Do pilot studies before doing “mega chip” experiments
•Don’t design experiment without replication; nothing will
be learned from a single failed experiment
•Design simple (one-two factor) experiments,
i.e. treatment vs. untreatment
•Understand measurement errors
•In designing Databases; they are useful ONLY if quality
of data is assured
•Involve statistical colleagues in the design stages of your studies
Microarray Summary
• Lots of variations
– Glass, nylon
– Long, short DNA molecules
– Fab via photolithography, ink jet, robot
– Radioactive vs fluorescent readout
– Relative vs absolute intensity
• Leads to diverse sensitivity, bias, noise, etc.
• But same bottom line:
unprecedented global insight into cellular state
and function
The Microarray Biz. (circa 3/2001)