ABSTRACT
Early work on high-density peptide and oligonucleotide microarrays fabricated using semiconductor-based technologies (Fodor et al., 1991, 1993) has stimulated much research using these chip-based approaches to answer important biological questions. Substantial progress in the application of these devices has been made; however, opinions differ on which microarray format to use (Bowtell, 1999; Gerhold et al., 1999; Marshall and Hodgson, 1998; O’Donnell-Maloney and Little, 1996; O’Donnell-Maloney et al., 1996; Ramsay, 1998; Southern, 1996). In addition, access to these new tools has been constrained by considerable start-up costs, delayed product release dates, uncertainty about the best technology, and incompletely optimized commercial systems (Castellino, 1997). This has resulted in a relative confinement to commercial ventures and large wellfunded research laboratories. Nonetheless, microarray technology continues to contribute much to our understanding of human gene organization and expression, and a large body of research has focused on the use of DNA chips, reflecting the increasing power and availability of this technology (Aitman et al., 1999; Brown and Botstein, 1999; Debouck and Goodfellow, 1999; Duggan et al., 1999; Hacia, 1999; Lander, 1999; Lipshutz et al., 1999; Southern et al., 1999). There are a number of microarray-related websites detailing academic as well as commercial efforts in this area (i.e., https://www.gene-chips.com). Although it is clear that no single approach provides all solutions, we provide here a perspective on options available to exploit such technology and how one might build a complete system suitable for users operating in “low-tech” research or clinical laboratory settings. In addition, we provide a summary of our results from basic biophysical studies aimed at helping to define parameters for array optimization.
