Double round hybridization of membrane based cDNA arrays: improved background reduction and data replication

Microarray analysis provides the ability to obtain gene expression data on thousands of gene targets in parallel and is being applied to an increasing variety of neurobiological samples. Nylon filter based cDNA arrays often provide an alternative to oligobased or glass-based gene expression analysis systems. cDNA arrays regardless of the platform, are usually quite expensive to purchase and equally expensive to produce. As such, obtaining both high quality and replicated data, as well as the ability to recover from an apparently failed hybridization experiment are important factors in microarray experimental design. Using a collection of 1152 neuronally relevant cDNAs, this report describes simple modifications in experimental design of radioactive microarray experiments that, (1) improves reproducibility; (2) allows recovery from a failed experiment and; (3) provides a type of replicate data set with no requirement for additional arrays, no additional probe labelings, and little extra cost. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.