Ryan Margaret M, Huffaker Stephen J, Webster Maree J, Wayland Matt, Freeman Tom, Bahn Sabine
Department of Neurobiology, Babraham Institute, Cambridge CB2 4AT, United Kingdom.
Biol Psychiatry. 2004 Feb 15;55(4):329-36. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2003.10.016.
A number of microarray investigations using human postmortem brain tissue have been published recently, exploring a multitude of human brain disorders with the aim of unraveling the underlying pathologies. Although the technology is still developing and lacks sufficient sensitivity with regard to detecting splice variants and low abundance transcripts, microarrays are becoming the prominent method for candidate gene screening in complex neuropsychiatric disorders. The use of postmortem tissue harbors a variety of potential pitfalls, however, which could result in unreliable or, at worst, meaningless results. During the course of our large-scale gene expression study on 150 human postmortem brain samples, using more than 200 Affymetrix GeneChips, we have identified several aspects within microarray experimental procedure that allows for the early identification of potentially unreliable samples. The general application of the guidelines and technical tips described here increase the efficiency, reliability, and amount of data generated by this powerful screening technology while reducing superfluous consumption of time and resources.
最近发表了一些使用人类死后脑组织的微阵列研究，旨在通过探索多种人类脑部疾病来揭示潜在的病理状况。尽管该技术仍在发展，并且在检测剪接变体和低丰度转录本方面缺乏足够的灵敏度，但微阵列正成为复杂神经精神疾病中候选基因筛选的主要方法。然而，使用死后组织存在各种潜在的陷阱，这可能导致结果不可靠，或者在最坏的情况下毫无意义。在我们对150个人类死后脑样本进行的大规模基因表达研究过程中，使用了200多个Affymetrix基因芯片，我们在微阵列实验过程中确定了几个方面，这些方面有助于早期识别潜在不可靠的样本。这里描述的指导方针和技术提示的普遍应用提高了这种强大筛选技术产生的数据的效率、可靠性和数量，同时减少了时间和资源的不必要消耗。
