DAFL News
I would like to inform you of recent developments at the Lausanne DNA Array Facility (DAFL).
*/Arabidopsis thaliana/ microarrays*
The DAFL is now producing /Arabidopsis thaliana/ microarrays for general distribution. These glass slide arrays contain more than 24,000 gene specific tags (GSTs) designed by the Complete /Arabidopsis/ Transcriptome MicroArray Project (CATMA Project; http://www.catma.org/).
The GSTs have been generously provided to the DAFL by *Edward Farmer *and *Philippe Reymond* of the UNIL's Department of Plant Molecular Biology.
*Ozone-free laboratory*
Summer atmospheric ozone concentrations in Lausanne often rise to levels that cause degradation of the Cy5 dye used in many microarray experiments. As a solution to this problem, the DAFL has installed an "ozone-free" room in its new labs in the CIG. The air in this lab is circulated through an ozone catalyzer, thus maintaining ozone levels below those at which Cy5 degradation is a problem. This lab is available for use by the DAFL User community.
*Bioinformatic tools* *Microarray practical course*
The DAFL has recently developed a suite of bioinformatic tools for the analysis of Affymetrix GeneChip data. This suite, called RACE (The Remote Analysis Computation for gene Expression data), performs probe level data preprocessing, extensive quality checks, data visualization, and data normalization on gene expression profiling data. Additionally, RACE estimates the false discovery rates of lists of potentially regulated genes and provides a Gene Ontology-term analysis tool to support the biological interpretation and annotation of results. RACE is freely available for use at http://race.unil.ch
The DAFL is organizing an SKMB practical course "Gene Expression Profiling using DNA Microarrays", to be held November 14-18, 2005. The course will provide 'hands-on' training in the basic steps of a cDNA microarray expression profiling experiment, including both laboratory and bioinformatic analysis aspects of the experimental process. Additionally, short lectures will be given by UNIL, EPFL and ISREC researchers illustrating the utility of microarrays and gene expression profiling using examples from their research programs.
If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact :
Keith Harshman
DNA Array Facility
Center for Integrative Genomics
BEP
University of Lausanne
1015 Lausanne Switzerland
www.unil.ch/dafl
tel: 41-21-692-3906
fax: 41-21-692-3905
Keith.Harshman@unil.ch
