A facile method for the construction of oligonucleotide microarrays

Immobilization techniques for microarray: challenges and applications

The highly programmable positioning of molecules (biomolecules, nanoparticles, nanobeads, nanocomposites materials) on surfaces has potential applications in the fields of biosensors, biomolecular electronics, and nanodevices. However, the conventional techniques including self-assembled monolayers fail to position the molecules on the nanometer scale to produce highly organized monolayers on the surface. The present article elaborates different techniques for the immobilization of the biomolecules on the surface to produce microarrays and their diagnostic applications. The advantages and the drawbacks of various methods are compared. This article also sheds light on the applications of the different technologies for the detection and discrimination of viral/bacterial genotypes and the detection of the biomarkers. A brief survey with 115 references covering the last 10 years on the biological applications of microarrays in various fields is also provided.

Engineered polymer-supported synthesis of 3'-carboxyalkyl-modified oligonucleotides and their applications in the construction of biochips for diagnosis of the diseases

An engineered polymer support 5 has been prepared for the solid-phase assembly of 3'-carboxyalkyl-modified oligonucleotides using commonly available reagents. A two-step deprotection procedure resulted in the quantitative cleavage of oligonucleotides from the support and removal of the protecting groups from phosphodiesters and exocyclic amino groups of the nucleic bases. The fully deprotected oligomers, obtained in high yield, were desalted and analyzed on RP-HPLC. After characterization by MALDI-TOF, these carboxyalkylated oligonucleotides were immobilized onto the epoxy-functionalized glass microslides to prepare biochips. The performance of these biochips was evaluated under different sets of conditions and then successfully validated by the detection of base mismatches and human infectious disease, bacterial meningitis, caused by N. meningitidis.

Peptide-tags for enhanced DNA microarray performance

DNA microarrays are powerful tools for gene expression analysis and genotyping studies in research and diagnostic applications. A high sensitivity and short time-to-result are prerequisites for their practical application in the clinic. The hybridization efficiency of DNA microarrays depends on the probe density and the probe orientation and thus their accessibility for target molecules. In order to find an optimal probe immobilization procedure a set of different oligonucleotide modifications was tested on epoxy silane functionalized glass slides. It was found that histidine-tagged oligonucleotides resulted in the highest amount of bound probe and by far the best hybridization efficiencies. The detection limit obtained with histidine-tagged probes was up to two orders of magnitude lower compared to commonly used probe modifications. In order to further investigate the binding mechanism of histidine-tags towards functionalized glass substrates a set of different peptide-tags with and without free terminal amino-groups and with different amino acid compositions was tested. The results indicate an impact of the terminal amino group on the covalent surface binding and of aromatic amino acid residues on the enhanced hybridisation efficiency.

New protocol for oligonucleotide microarray fabrication using SU-8-coated glass microslides

Microarray technology has become an important tool for detection and analysis of nucleic acid targets. Immobilization of modified and unmodified oligonucleotides on epoxy-functionalized glass surfaces is often used in microarray fabrication. Here, we demonstrate a protocol that employs coating of SU-8 (glycidyl ether of bisphenol A) onto glass microslides to obtain high density of epoxy functions for efficient immobilization of aminoalkyl-, thiophosphoryl-, and phosphorylated oligonucleotides with uniform spot morphology. The resulting microarrays exhibited high immobilization (∼65%) and hybridization efficiency (30-36%) and were sufficiently stable over a range of temperature and pH conditions. The prominent feature of the protocol is that spots can be visualized distinctly at 0.05 μM probe (a 20-mer oligonucleotide) concentration. The constructed microarrays were subsequently used for detection of base mismatches and bacterial diseases (meningitis and typhoid).

Chemical strategies for immobilization of oligonucleotides

The development of oligonucleotide-based microarrays (biochips) is a major thrust area in the rapidly growing biotechnology industry, which encompasses a diverse range of research areas including genomics, proteomics, computational biology, and pharmaceuticals, among other activities. Microarray experiments have proved to be unique in offering cost-effective and efficient analysis at the genomic level. In the last few years, biochips have gained increasing acceptance in the study of genetic and cellular processes. As the increase in experimental throughput has posed many challenges to the research community, considerable progress has been made in the advancement of microarray technology. In this review, chemical strategies for immobilization of oligonucleotides have been highlighted with special emphasis on post-synthetic immobilization of oligonucleotides on glass surface. The major objective of this article is to make the researchers acquainted with some most recent advances in this area.

Construction of oligonucleotide microarrays (biochips) via thioether linkage for the detection of bacterial meningitis

Oligonucleotide-based arrays are increasingly becoming useful tools for the analysis of gene expression and single-nucleotide polymorphism. Here, we report a method that allows the direct immobilization of thiolated oligonucleotides onto an epoxy-activated glass surface via a stable thioether linkage under microwaves. The described chemistry efficiently immobilizes the probes via terminal thiol groups with uniform spot morphology. The thioether linkage could endure repeated PCR-like heat cycling with only 2.5% loss after 20 cycles, indicating that the chemistry can be used in integrated PCR/microarray devices. The highlighting feature of the proposed method is that the detection limit for the probe concentration can be reduced to 0.25 microM with 20-mer oligonucleotides. The efficiency of the projected method (approximately 33%) indicates its advantage over the existing standard methods, viz., NTMTA (approximately 9.8%), epoxide-amine (approximately 9.8%) and disulfide (approximately 1.7%). The constructed microarrays were validated through the detection of base mismatches and bacterial meningitis. These features make the projected strategy ideal for manufacturing oligonucleotide arrays and detection of mismatches and bacterial diseases.