Gene chip technology

gene chip (also known as DNA chip and biochip) technology is the product of this scientific development, and its appearance provides a bright prospect for solving this kind of problem. This technology means that a large number of probe molecules (usually the lattice density per square centimeter is higher than 4) are fixed on the support and hybridized with the labeled sample molecules, and the number and sequence information of the sample molecules are obtained by detecting the hybridization signal strength of each probe molecule. Generally speaking, tens of thousands, even millions of DNA fragments (gene probes) with specific sequences are regularly arranged and fixed on 2cm2 silicon wafers, glass slides and other supports to form a two-dimensional DNA probe array, which is very similar to computer electronic chips, so it is called gene chip. Gene chip is mainly used for gene detection. As early as 198s, Bains W. et al. fixed short DNA fragments on supports and sequenced them by means of hybridization. However, the industrialization of gene chip from the laboratory is directly due to the introduction of probe solid-state in-situ synthesis technology, photo lithography technology, organic junction gene chip < P > and laser focusing microscopy technology. It makes it feasible to synthesize and immobilize tens of thousands of probe molecules with high density, and with the help of gene chip < P > laser * * * focusing microscopic scanning technology, it can detect and analyze the hybridization signal in real time, sensitively and accurately. Just as the development of electron tube circuit to transistor circuit and integrated circuit has experienced, the integration of nucleic acid hybridization technology has also revolutionized and is making molecular biology technology. At present, there are more than ten companies all over the world specializing in the research and development of gene chips, and more shaped products and equipment have come out. The main representative is Affymetrix Company of the United States. The company has gathered a number of experts in computer, mathematics and molecular biology, and its annual research funding is more than 1 million dollars, which has lasted for 67 years and has a number of patents. The products will be put on the market soon or in part, resulting in remarkable social and economic benefits. Because a large number of probes are fixed on the support at the same time, gene chip technology can detect and analyze a large number of samples at one time, thus solving the shortcomings of traditional nucleic acid imprinting hybridization (Southern Blotting and Northern Blotting, etc.) such as complicated operation, low automation, small number of operating sequences and low detection efficiency. Moreover, by designing different probe arrays and using specific analysis methods, this technology can have many different application values, such as gene expression profiling, real change detection, polymorphism analysis, genome library mapping and hybridization sequencing.