In genetics, complementary DNA (cDNA) is DNA synthesized from a single-stranded RNA template in a reaction catalyzed by the enzyme reverse transcriptase. cDNA is often used to clone eukaryotic genes in prokaryotes. When scientists want to express a specific protein in a cell that does not normally express that protein, they will transfer the cDNA that codes for the protein to the recipient cell. In molecular biology, cDNA is also generated to analyze transcriptomic profiles in bulk tissue, single cells, or single nuclei in assays such as microarrays and RNA-seq.
The northern blot, or RNA blot, is a technique used in molecular biology research to study gene expression by detection of RNA in a sample.
Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. These products are often proteins, but in non-protein-coding genes such as transfer RNA (tRNA) and small nuclear RNA (snRNA), the product is a functional non-coding RNA. Gene expression is summarized in the central dogma of molecular biology first formulated by Francis Crick in 1958, further developed in his 1970 article, and expanded by the subsequent discoveries of reverse transcription and RNA replication.
A microarray is a multiplex lab-on-a-chip. Its purpose is to simultaneously detect the expression of thousands of genes from a sample. It is a two-dimensional array on a solid substrate—usually a glass slide or silicon thin-film cell—that assays (tests) large amounts of biological material using high-throughput screening miniaturized, multiplexed and parallel processing and detection methods. The concept and methodology of microarrays was first introduced and illustrated in antibody microarrays by Tse Wen Chang in 1983 in a scientific publication and a series of patents. The "gene chip" industry started to grow significantly after the 1995 Science Magazine article by the Ron Davis and Pat Brown labs at Stanford University. With the establishment of companies, such as Affymetrix, Agilent, Applied Microarrays, Arrayjet, Illumina, and others, the technology of DNA microarrays has become the most sophisticated and the most widely used, while the use of protein, peptide and carbohydrate microarrays is expanding.
Oligonucleotides are short DNA or RNA molecules, oligomers, that have a wide range of applications in genetic testing, research, and forensics. Commonly made in the laboratory by solid-phase chemical synthesis, these small bits of nucleic acids can be manufactured as single-stranded molecules with any user-specified sequence, and so are vital for artificial gene synthesis, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA sequencing, molecular cloning and as molecular probes. In nature, oligonucleotides are usually found as small RNA molecules that function in the regulation of gene expression, or are degradation intermediates derived from the breakdown of larger nucleic acid molecules.
Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is a laboratory technique combining reverse transcription of RNA into DNA and amplification of specific DNA targets using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It is primarily used to measure the amount of a specific RNA. This is achieved by monitoring the amplification reaction using fluorescence, a technique called real-time PCR or quantitative PCR (qPCR). Combined RT-PCR and qPCR are routinely used for analysis of gene expression and quantification of viral RNA in research and clinical settings.
A DNA microarray is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. Scientists use DNA microarrays to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously or to genotype multiple regions of a genome. Each DNA spot contains picomoles of a specific DNA sequence, known as probes. These can be a short section of a gene or other DNA element that are used to hybridize a cDNA or cRNA sample under high-stringency conditions. Probe-target hybridization is usually detected and quantified by detection of fluorophore-, silver-, or chemiluminescence-labeled targets to determine relative abundance of nucleic acid sequences in the target. The original nucleic acid arrays were macro arrays approximately 9 cm × 12 cm and the first computerized image based analysis was published in 1981. It was invented by Patrick O. Brown. An example of its application is in SNPs arrays for polymorphisms in cardiovascular diseases, cancer, pathogens and GWAS analysis. Also for identification of structural variations and measurement of gene expression.
Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products. Sophisticated programs of gene expression are widely observed in biology, for example to trigger developmental pathways, respond to environmental stimuli, or adapt to new food sources. Virtually any step of gene expression can be modulated, from transcriptional initiation, to RNA processing, and to the post-translational modification of a protein. Often, one gene regulator controls another, and so on, in a gene regulatory network.
Affymetrix is now Applied Biosystems, a brand of DNA microarray products sold by Thermo Fisher Scientific that originated with an American biotechnology research and development and manufacturing company of the same name. The Santa Clara, California-based Affymetrix, Inc. now a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific was founded by Stephen Fodor and his group, based on their earlier development of methods to fabricate DNA microarrays using semiconductor manufacturing techniques.
Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) is a transcriptomic technique used by molecular biologists to produce a snapshot of the messenger RNA population in a sample of interest in the form of small tags that correspond to fragments of those transcripts. Several variants have been developed since, most notably a more robust version, LongSAGE, RL-SAGE and the most recent SuperSAGE. Many of these have improved the technique with the capture of longer tags, enabling more confident identification of a source gene.
In the field of molecular biology, gene expression profiling is the measurement of the activity of thousands of genes at once, to create a global picture of cellular function. These profiles can, for example, distinguish between cells that are actively dividing, or show how the cells react to a particular treatment. Many experiments of this sort measure an entire genome simultaneously, that is, every gene present in a particular cell.
An RNA spike-in is an RNA transcript of known sequence and quantity used to calibrate measurements in RNA hybridization assays, such as DNA microarray experiments, RT-qPCR, and RNA-Seq.
Cell-free protein array technology produces protein microarrays by performing in vitro synthesis of the target proteins from their DNA templates. This method of synthesizing protein microarrays overcomes the many obstacles and challenges faced by traditional methods of protein array production that have prevented widespread adoption of protein microarrays in proteomics. Protein arrays made from this technology can be used for testing protein–protein interactions, as well as protein interactions with other cellular molecules such as DNA and lipids. Other applications include enzymatic inhibition assays and screenings of antibody specificity.
Nucleic acid methods are the techniques used to study nucleic acids: DNA and RNA.
Winston Patrick Kuo is a Chinese-American computational biologist who specializes in utilizing translational technologies to solve biomedical related issues. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Developmental Biology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Director of the Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies.
Frozen tissue array consists of fresh frozen tissues in which up to 50 separate tissue cores are assembled in array fashion to allow simultaneous histological analysis.
OLIGO Primer Analysis Software was the first publicly available software for DNA primer design. The first papers describing this software were published in 1989 and 1990, and consecutive upgrades in the 1990s and 2000s, all have been cited together over 600 times in scientific journals and over 500 times in patents. The program is a comprehensive real time PCR primer and probe search and analysis tool, and also does other tasks such as siRNA and molecular beacon searches, open reading frame and restriction enzyme analysis etc. It has been created and maintained by Wojciech Rychlik and Piotr Rychlik. The OLIGO has been reviewed several times in scientific journals, for the first time in 1991 in a review in Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and for its next upgrades.
The Illumina Methylation Assay using the Infinium I platform uses 'BeadChip' technology to generate a comprehensive genome-wide profiling of human DNA methylation. Similar to bisulfite sequencing and pyrosequencing, this method quantifies methylation levels at various loci within the genome. This assay is used for methylation probes on the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation27 BeadChip. Probes on the 27k array target regions of the human genome to measure methylation levels at 27,578 CpG dinucleotides in 14,495 genes. The Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array targets >450,000 methylation sites.
MAGIChips, also known as "microarrays of gel-immobilized compounds on a chip" or "three-dimensional DNA microarrays", are devices for molecular hybridization produced by immobilizing oligonucleotides, DNA, enzymes, antibodies, and other compounds on a photopolymerized micromatrix of polyacrylamide gel pads of 100x100x20µm or smaller size. This technology is used for analysis of nucleic acid hybridization, specific binding of DNA, and low-molecular weight compounds with proteins, and protein-protein interactions.
Massive parallel signature sequencing (MPSS) is a procedure that is used to identify and quantify mRNA transcripts, resulting in data similar to serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE), although it employs a series of biochemical and sequencing steps that are substantially different.
