KTH Microarray

Facility/Node
KTH Microarray Center

Contact person
Peter Nilsson [nipe@kth.se]

Facility website: http://www.ktharray.se

Summary of service
KTH microarray resource center has been producing spotted DNA microarrays since 1999. The instrumental infrastructure that has been established has to a large extent been financed from Wallenberg Consortium North, WCN. A wide variety of spotted slides are being produced, with different types of DNA fragments from organisms such as human, poplar tree, mouse, chicken and arabidopsis and also several archaeal, bacterial and parasite whole genome arrays.

The KTH microarray resource center also aims to provide guidance to research groups which are lacking the necessary microarray experience by providing detailed experimental protocols and by giving both wet-lab and data analysis courses. Furthermore, bioinformatic support personnel are available for discussions regarding experimental design and data analysis. The various collections of DNA fragments constitutes together more than 250.000 different microarray probes.

Technologies/Methods
KTH Array Platform produces and distributes a wide variety of spotted DNA microarrays at a unit price of 600 SEK per slide. Today whole genome arrays from approximately 15 different species are provided corresponding to approximately 250 000 different transcripts. New from January 2007 is a “RNA in - data out” gene expression service. The research community can now submit RNA samples to be analyzed. Standard operating procedures are used including multiple quality controls and the gene expression profiles are returned to the customers. The average cost for this service is 2600 SEK per experiment/slide. The hybridizations can be done on any of the KTH produced DNA micro arrays, customized micro arrays or on commercially available micro arrays. The array facility also has an increasing service activity for printing non-gene expression arrays such as protein, carbohydrate, SNP and complex biosample arrays. New from January 2007 is also the possibility to perform digital gene expression profiling using the Roche GS-20 (454) instrument that provides high throughput DNA sequence capacity that can be used for genotyping, genome sequencing and EST profiling. A digital profile of over 200 000 ESTs can be provided in a single experiment covering the majority of transcripts within a cell.

Practical information
For more practical information about the services we offer please see our website.

Details/theories on technology