Establishment of cDNA microarray analysis at the Genomic Medicine Research Core Laboratory (GMRCL) of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
BACKGROUND
Advances in molecular and computational biology have led to the development of powerful, high-throughput methods for analysis of differential gene expression, which are opening up new opportunities in genomic medicine. DNA microarray technology has been enthusiastically integrated into basic biomedical research and will eventually become a molecular monitoring tool for various clinical courses.


METHODS
As a core research facility of Chang Gung University (CGU) and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH), the Genomic Medicine Research Core Laboratory (GMRCL) welcomes investigators from every discipline to employ DNA microarray technology in the quest for knowledge of genomic medicine. The first tasks for GMRCL are to optimize the standard operating procedures (SOP) for each instrument and to assure the quality of every procedure.


RESULTS
During the first year after the establishment of the GMRCL at the CGMH, we tested and adopted procedures that were satisfactory for our purposes. These procedures included: replication of bacterial stocks, amplification of human DNA clones, annotation of each DNA clone, production of cDNA microarrays, validation of RNA quality and quantity, labeling of target specimens, competitive hybridization, scanning of slides, data analysis, and post-microarray validation of results. We present a summarization of the materials and procedures used at the GMRCL and discuss the reasons for using them.


CONCLUSIONS
The information about the cDNA microarray analysis system at the GMRCL is compliant with the minimal information about a microarray experiment (MIAME) format. The information may be useful to both the investigators who are using this core facility and researchers at other institutes, who will establish their own in-house cDNA microarray systems.
Wang
Tzu-Hao
TH
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan, ROC.
Lee
Yun-Shien
YS
Chen
En-Shih
ES
Kong
Wei-Hsiang
WH
Chen
Lung-Kun
LK
Hsueh
Ding-Wei
DW
Wei
Min-Li
ML
Wang
Hsing-Shih
HS
Lee
Ying-Shiung
YS
D006801:Humans; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic