The ToxFX™ Analysis Suite provides a complete toxicogenomics solution—from protocols and microarrays for generating gene expression data to an automated analysis and a final toxicological report enabling rapid access to information capable of impacting the decision-making process—to help researchers better understand compound safety issues in early drug discovery and development. The Suite offers an easy-to-use and rapid assay that combines Affymetrix microarrays with an automated analysis developed by Iconix Biosciences.
Researchers can generate a compound safety profile within minutes of submitting gene expression data; the profile reports predicted safety issues for more than 50 toxicological outcomes, the genes that are likely to be most important in relation to those problems and the biological pathways that are most likely to play a role in any predicted toxicity. These results enable decision-making far sooner than the weeks or months necessary to produce a typical pathology report. The ToxFX analysis accomplishes this task by using several tools including Iconix' DrugMatrix reference database, Drug Signatures and Pathway Impact analysis.
A final comprehensive report detailing the study design and its findings is immediately ready to be shared with the project team to help:
- Prioritize compounds during drug discovery more quickly
- Understand mechanisms of toxicity underlying drug candidate safety issues more completely
- Confirm drug candidate safety earlier in the pipeline
- Identify potential safety issues associated with toxicants and/or chemicals in living animals as part of environmental safety studies
Gene expression data can be generated using either the whole genome GeneChip Rat Genome 230 2.0 Array or the focused GeneChip Rat ToxFX 1.0 Array, representing a subset of genes carefully selected by Iconix for use with the ToxFX Analysis Suite. Considerations for each array are:
- GeneChip Rat ToxFX 1.0 Array:
Iconix and Affymetrix have combined their experience to design an array exclusively for the ToxFX automated analysis. Based on approximately 600 in vivo compound experiments, the array content focuses specifically on unique probe sets that Iconix' analysis experience indicates are most informative from a toxicology perspective. For compound screening purposes, the more focused array provides the economical solution for running large numbers of samples.
- GeneChip Rat Genome 230 2.0 Array:
In addition to the ToxFX automated analysis, the whole-genome coverage provided by the Rat 230 2.0 Array enables a more in-depth investigation of mechanisms-of-toxicity through Iconix Consulting Services or the bioinformatics analysis capabilities of the user. The report generated by the ToxFX automated analysis using Rat 230 2.0 Arrays focuses on the same toxicologically important genes that are found on the Rat ToxFX 1.0 Array. Gene expression changes for the complete genome are recorded in the supplementary data files returned with the ToxFX Report. These files provide a useful starting point for the user to perform more in-depth analysis of whole-genome effects.
The ToxFX Report
Each ToxFX study is fully documented in a comprehensive and easy-to-read report. The ToxFX Report is automatically generated as a PDF document and provides an in-depth summary of all aspects of the study and its results. Data are summarized in the report at a variety of levels allowing the user to first get an overall impression of the study outcome and then delve deeper into specific results of interest. Each ToxFX Report is written using standard toxicology terminology and is designed to be standalone documentation of the study.
Fore more information, visit: http://www.toxfx.com
For ordering information, visit: http://www.toxfx.com/product_purchaseinfo.php
Read about others using microarrays in drug discovery and development
Toxicogenomics
Pharmacogenomics
Biomarker Discovery
|
