Intellectual Property & Your Health Series - Gene identification by microarray genomic analysis

Shidonna Raven
Jun 3
2 min read

Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,

Before you go to the Doctor!

Gene identification by microarray genomic analysis

Genomics has greatly simplified the process of finding the complete subset of genes that is relevant to some specific temporal or developmental event of an organism. For example, microarray technology allows a sample of the DNA of a clone of each gene in a whole genome to be laid out in order on the surface of a special chip, which is basically a small thin piece of glass that is treated in such a way that DNA molecules firmly stick to the surface. For any specific developmental stage of interest (e.g., the growth of root hairs in a plant or the production of a limb bud in an animal), the total RNA is extracted from cells of the organism, labeled with a fluorescent dye, and used to bathe the surfaces of the microarrays. As a result of specific base pairing, the RNAs present bind to the genes from which they were originally transcribed and produce fluorescent spots on the chip’s surface. Hence, the total set of genes that were transcribed during the biological function of interest can be determined. Note that forward genetics can aim at a similar goal of assembling the subset of genes that pertain to some specific biological process. The forward genetic approach is to first induce a large set of mutations with phenotypes that appear to change the process in question, followed by attempts to define the genes that normally guide the process. However, the technique can only identify genes for which mutations produce an easily recognizable mutant phenotype, and so genes with subtle effects are often missed.