MicroArray Facility, VIB, Gasthuisberg Leuven, Belgium
The MicroArray Facility (MAF) was initiated in April 1999 at Flanders Inter-University Institute of Biotechnology (VIB) as a central core unit for large-scale expression analysis using cDNA MicroArray technology. The purpose of the facility is to provide all VIB researchers access to a full service for expression analysis, including: production of cDNA arrays, RNA labeling, hybridization, and data analysis (www.microarrays.be). To perform this task, the facility has acquired the technology of Molecular Dynamics/Amersham Biosciences, which places it at the current industrial “state of the art” level. Currently, we have the capacity to analyze 17,000 human, 22,000 mouse and 6,000 Arabidopsis genes and we are routinely analyzing samples from different lines of research. In this presentation, I will give an overview of the facility and highlight some problems we encountered with slide coatings, hybridization conditions and normalization algorithms.