New method for DNA microarrays development: applied to human platelet antigens polymorphisms.

DNA microarrays are a powerful experimental tool for the detection of specific genomic sequences and are invaluable to a broad array of applications: clinical diagnosis, personalized medicine, drug research and development, gene therapy, food control technologies, and environmental sciences. Alloimmunization to human platelet antigens (HPAs) is commonly responsible for neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia, post-transfusional purpura and platelet transfusion refractoriness. Using DNA microarrays, we developed a diagnosis to type the biallelic HPA-1 platelet group.

Immobilisation of oligo-peptidic probes for microarray implementation: characterisation by FTIR, atomic force microscopy and 2D fluorescence.

Proteomic microarrays show a wide range of applications for the investigation of DNA-protein, enzyme-substrate as well as protein-protein interactions. Among many challenges to build a viable "protein microarray", the surface chemistry that will allow to immobilised various proteins to retain their biological activity is of paramount importance. Here we report a chemical functionalisation method allowing immobilisation of oligo-peptides onto silica surface (porous silica, glass, thermal silicon dioxide).

Implementation of DNA chips obtained by microprojection for diagnostic and personalized medicine.

It is expected that rapidly emergent new fields of application for DNA chips will be Diagnostic and Personalized Medicine. These new applications will require a limited number of probes, generally from 100 to 1000. So, after a brief review of the existing techniques to manufacture DNA chips, which are efficient for R&D applications and which often require a higher number of probes, we shall first report some advances in the silanization of the substrates and the grafting of probes to improve the robustness and the reliability of the devices.