Detecting the presence of specific pathogens in complex backgrounds, both with respect to sample matrix and microbial diversity, especially low levels of pathogens, is a difficult and time-consuming process. GeneChip arrays have been used to rapidly detect multiple pathogens simultaneously, and to identify pathogens to the species level. |
The development of DNA microarrays for use in microbiological applications has catalyzed a fundamental shift in the types of studies that can be performed. No longer is one limited to studying a single gene or operon; instead microarrays provide a global view of genome-wide changes in expression, allowing the researcher to view all aspects of the complex interaction between the organism and its response to changes in its environment. This comprehensive and hypothesis-free analysis method allows scientists to discover and understand regulatory pathways in their entirety. Data from a single microarray experiment, whether gene expression profiling, genotyping, or DNA resequencing, can often be used for a number of different applications that would otherwise have required the compilation of data from numerous independent experiments. The power of this massively parallel approach to genetic analysis can be seen in the following applications.
