Oligonucleotide microarrays for bacteriophage expression studies.

Gene expression microarrays offer the ability to monitor the expression of all phage genes over an infection cycle. However, there are relatively few reports to date of microarrays being used to investigate phage biology. This chapter aims to provide an overview of how to design and implement a microarray experiment to investigate phage biology. Given the nature of microarrays being specific to an organism, each will provide a number of unique issues. In this chapter, we outline the basic theory behind microarrays and provide details on how to implement a microarray experiment from the design of oligonucleotide probes through to the hybridisation of microarrays. The matter of designing oligonucleotide probes will be discussed with regards to how probe length, secondary structure, free energy, probe orientation and amplification all have to be taken into account. As means of an example, the conditions used for the hybridisation of an array designed to be specific to the cyanophage S-PM2 is detailed.