CytoChip Focus Constitutional
A combination of karyotyping, FISH, and qPCR are currently used to investigate constitutional samples containing low quantities of poor quality DNA. While the utility of these techniques is well proven, they place a practical limit on the extent of the investigation, introduce delays where culturing is required, and are difficult to interpret when chromosomal morphology is poor.
The CytoChip Focus Constitutional uses novel arrayCGH technology to overcome these limitations and deliver automated and objective analysis of these challenging samples at a price comparable to karyotyping. Working directly with DNA extracted from blood, saliva, amniotic fluid, or chorionic villi the CytoChip Focus Constitutional delivers:
- User configurable, disease focused, design. Well-proven BAC technology delivers up to 1 Mb resolution across the genome in addition to 100 Kb resolution in 97 regions associated with constitutional disorders. Customized designs can be created to investigate a subset of these disease regions or to screen the genome at resolutions of 1-10 Mb.
- Reduced subjectivity. High levels of replication and smoothing ensure reliable estimation of genomic imbalance with only 50 ng of unamplified DNA from uncultured cells. Results are clear, reproducible between different operators, and easy to interpret.
- Fast turn-around times. A 2 day protocol delivers rapid results without time consuming culturing, improving lab workflow and allowing faster investigations. Protocols can be fully automated for higher throughput applications.
- Mosaic detection framework. Sophisticated controls, carefully selected clones and advanced software analysis enable large scale structural changes to be detected in clonal cell populations down to 10%.
- Industry leading software. BlueFuse Multi provides fully automated data analysis, storage of results and sophisticated DecisionTrack visualization in one easy to use software package. Push-button analysis produces detailed lists of imbalances that may be reviewed in detail for gene content and CNV frequency. A full audit trail is maintained.
- FISH follow-up. Each clone on the CytoChip Focus Constitutional may be ordered as a labelled BlueFish probe to provide complete flexibility in the investigation of complex rearrangements.
