Defining Genome-Wide Regulatory Events in Leukaemia Progression

Researchers at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques and the Institut de Recherches Interdisciplinaires in France are using the Applied Biosystems Expression Array System to understand gene regulatory events that are involved in the development of acute promyelocytic leukaemia on a genome-wide scale.

Dr Arndt Benecke, Head of the Systems Epigenomics Group, explained, "Using the 1700 Chemiluminescent Microarray Analyzer and TaqMan^® Gene Expression Assays, we are looking at samples from leukaemia patients to define multidimensional gene signatures."

"We are combining those studies with other microarray technologies, such as chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-on-chip, and translating the experimental results into probability maps using different computer algorithms."

"We then superimpose these probability maps onto the genomic sequence and develop methodology for analysing these data, using covariance and correlation coefficients, in order to make predictions concerning regulatory events."

"We chose the Expression Array System largely because of its wide gene coverage and the System's high sensitivity was also important."

"For most of the probes there are TaqMan assays available that have already been optimised, and this saves us lots of time in the downstream validation steps."

"Eventually we hope that our approach will allow sets of several potential pharmaceutical targets to be identified simultaneously for multifactorial diseases. This has never really been successfully established, but it is something that we are working towards."