title: Multipathogen oligonucleotide microarray for environmental and biodefense applications.
abstract: Food-borne pathogens are a major health problem. The large and diverse number of microbial pathogens and their virulence factors has fueled interest in technologies capable of detecting multiple pathogens and multiple virulence factors simultaneously. Some of these pathogens and their toxins have potential use as bioweapons. DNA microarray technology allows the simultaneous analysis of thousands of sequences of DNA in a relatively short time, making it appropriate for biodefense and for public health uses. This paper describes methods for using DNA microarrays to detect and analyze microbial pathogens. The FDA-1 microarray was developed for the simultaneous detection of several food-borne pathogens and their virulence factors including Listeria spp., Campylobacter spp., Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin genes and Clostridium perfringens toxin genes. Three elements were incorporated to increase confidence in the microarray detection system: redundancy of genes, redundancy of oligonucleotide probes (oligoprobes) for a specific gene, and quality control oligoprobes to monitor array spotting and target DNA hybridization. These elements enhance the reliability of detection and reduce the chance of erroneous results due to the genetic variability of microbes or technical problems with the microarray. The results presented demonstrate the potential of oligonucleotide microarrays for detection of environmental and biodefense relevant microbial pathogens.
authors.affiliation: FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, College Park, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Nikolay
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sergeev
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Distler
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Courtney
authors.forename: Sufian F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Al-Khaldi
authors.forename: Dmitriy
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Volokhov
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chizhikov
authors.forename: Avraham
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rasooly
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001694:Biological Warfare; D023482:Bioterrorism; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005504:Food Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012637:Security Measures; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018511:Systems Integration