Development of a novel ozone- and photo-stable HyPer5 red fluorescent dye for array CGH and microarray gene expression analysis with consistent performance irrespective of environmental conditions.

Background: Array-based comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and gene expression profiling have become vital techniques for identifying molecular defects underlying genetic diseases. Regardless of the microarray platform, cyanine dyes (Cy3 and Cy5) are one of the most widely used fluorescent dye pairs for microarray analysis owing to their brightness and ease of incorporation, enabling high level of assay sensitivity. However, combining both dyes on arrays can become problematic during summer months when ozone levels rise to near 25 parts per billion (ppb).