The Mouse Genome Survey Microarray is designed for use with Applied Bio's recently introduced Expression Array System (EAS), a gene expression detection system that detects more genes and achieves more than a 10-fold increase in sensitivity for the detection of low expressed genes when compared to conventional fluorescent microarrays.
The mouse microarray complements the company's recently introduced Human Genome Survey Microarray, used for applications such as measuring the changes in gene expression that occur in a particular disease process or in response to exposure to a drug.
The EAS can detect gene expression at extremely low levels and with small amounts of sample, which can be important to those researchers working with limited amounts of samples, as is often required for cancer research. The system interprets those data into gene expression events, making it particularly useful for target screening, target identification and target validation in the drug discovery lab.
The Mouse Genome Survey Microarray contains probes representing a complete, annotated, and fully curated set of approximately 32,000 mouse genes from the public and Celera databases. Applied Bio claims it is the most comprehensive source of mouse genomic data for researchers studying the mouse, an important animal model of disease used also for safety assessment of therapeutics in toxicology studies. In addition, the annotation file supplied with the mouse microarray provides flags of mouse genes that are known human equivalents.
A rat microarray is in development, and is expected to be available later this calendar year.
Other companies offering whole genome microarrays include Affymetrix, NimbleGen and Agilent.