Surface and printing effects on fluorescent images of immobilized biomolecule arrays.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the surface and printing effects on fluorescent images of immobilized biomolecule arrays. The chapter describes a study in which fluorescently labeled biological molecules were used to probe printing methods for biochip array applications. The arrays of biological molecules immobilized onto functionalized surfaces (biochips) are finding widespread use for highly parallel screening applications. Great advances in the field of genomics are realized through the use of nucleic acid arrays that provide the ability to perform genome-wide gene expression monitoring, polymorphism identification over tens of kilobases of sequence, and massively parallel genotyping in single biochip experiments. A general format for a biochip is a spatially arrayed surface patterned with 10s, 100s, or even 1000s of features in a two-dimensional coordinate system; each feature contains a population of identical recognition elements (capture probes), such as a specific nucleic acid sequence or antibody. The protocols employed in the chapter allow information useful for optimization of printing processes to be obtained.